"The Plague" in Albert Camus's fiction

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THE PLAGUE IN ALBERT CAMUS'S FICTION

by

Bernard Edward Ast. Jr.

Copyrigh¥^ernard Edward Ast. Jr. 1998

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the

FRENCH AND ITALIAN DEPART.MENT

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY WITH A MAJOR IN FRENCH

In the Graduate College of

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

19 9 8 UMX Number: 9831855

Copyright 1998 by Ast, Bernard Edward, Jr.

All rights reserved.

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THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA ® GRADUATE COLLEGE

As members of the Final Examination Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Bernard Edward Ast, Jr. entitled The Plaque in Albert Camus' s Fiction

and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Dace f

Dr. Regihald McGinnis _ Date h'jf Dr. Monique Wittig Date

Dr. Elizabeth Zegura Date

Date

Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate's submission of the final copy of the dissertation to the Graduate College.

I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement.

— '2oA±nfjjj£' Dissertation Director R^in^ld McGinnis Date Dr. Monique Wittig 3

STATEMENT BY THE AUTHOR

This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under the rules of the Library.

Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotations from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder.

SIG-N'ED: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

I would like to thank Professors Lise Leibacher. Reginald McGinn Monique Wittig and Elizabeth Zegura for their valuable suggestions and comments on this dissertation. 0

DEDICATION:

For one of the kindest and wisest people I've ever known: Professor Ingeborg Kohn. 6

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT 8

REGARDING THE REFERENCE SYSTEM 9

REGARDING THE TRANSLATIONS 10

PREFACE II

CHAPTER 1: AGGRESSORS (SCOURGE AS AGENT) 19 1.1 The Plague 19 1.2 Other Tyrants 26 1.3 The Inner Plague 29 1.4 Poverty 38 1.5 Infirmity (Physical and Mental) 44 1.6 Climate 53

CHAPTER 2: AGGRESSION (SCOURGE AS ACTION) 57 2.1 Exile 57 2.2 Imprisonment 66 2.3 Physical Separation from Loved Ones 73 2.4 Existential Separation 83 2.5 Solitude 96 2.6 Death 105 2.7 Murder 117 2.8 Execution 129 2.9 Suicide 136

CHAPTER 3: VICTIMS 144 3.1 Children 144 3.2 Artists 150 3.3 Clergy 165 3.4 Judges 174 3.5 Lawyers 180

CHAPTER 4; THE THIRD DOMAIN 187 4.1 True Doctors 187 4.2 Friendship 191 4.3 Happiness 197 4.4 Sea 204 4.5 Light 208 (

TABLE OF CONTENTS-Continued

AFTERWORD 211

NOTES 216

REFERENCES 220 8

ABSTRACT

This dissertation catalogues and examines Albert Camus's thematic repetitiveness as seen in his fiction and in how this repetitiveness relates to the world view presented in the so-called guillotine passage in his novel The Plague: that the world consists of scourges, victims, and an elusive third domain.

A scourge can be an aggressor. It causes suffering and even death. The plague and other infirmities, both physical and mental, are aggressors. They are indiscriminate, merciless, and oftentimes deadly. Tyrants, too, are aggressors, some of which cling to the arbitrary, while others have a considerably more formal agenda. An aggressor can be metaphysical: the inner plague. Some aggressors, like poverty and the climate, can also have a positive side to them.

A scourge can also be an aggression—what the aggressor causes. They usually cannot be justified (e.tistential separation, death, murder, e.xecution. suicide), but some aggressions lead to enlightenment or positive change (exile, imprisonment, separation from loved ones). Yet one aggression, solitude of a certain kind, can actually be a desired and pleasant experience.

Victims are the second domain. Camus focuses primarily on children, artists, clergy, judges and lawyers. The first three groups are presented in a balanced fashion, with emphasis on both the positive and the negative. Judges and lawyers are presented in a negative light, with only slight deviations.

The third domain consists of true doctors (true friends) and peace/happiness, with true doctors--who are not necessarily doctors—contributing to the attainment of happiness or at least an improvement in circumstances.

Light, the sea, other aspects of nature and sensual pleasures can also contribute to finding peace/happiness. 9

Regarding The Reference System

For Albert Camus's most popular works. I shall use a variety of editions, which are listed in the reference section of this dissertation. For works quoted from the Theatre, recits. nouvelles volume of the Pleiade edition. I shall use the notation PT just before the page number, e.g.. (PT. 455). For works quoted from the E.ssais volume of the Pleiade edition. I shall use the notation PE Just before the page number, e.g.. (PE. 455).

Camus's notebooks, his Carnets. are in three volumes. I shall refer to a given volume via the corresponding number, followed by a C. then followed by the page number. For example. (2C, 66) would designate a quote from the second volume of his published notebooks, page 66.

Camus wrote several articles for L'Express. Some of these appear in his

Actuelles series, which can be found in the Essais Pleiade volume. For those articles not appearing in the Actuelles series. I shall be quoting from .A.lbert

Camus editorialiste a L'E.xpress. which is listed in the reference section. For such quotations, my notation will be an Ex immediately followed by the page number, e.g., (E.\78).

Camus's private writings pertaining to his North and South .American travels have been compiled into a volume titled Journaux de voyages. For references to this work, my notation will be a V immediately followed by the page number, e.g.. (V32). 10

Regarding The Translations

All quoted material from Albert Camus and scholarly articles and books originally not in English has been translated into English. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. For several of Camus's more significant quotations, the original French is provided in endnotes. 11

Preface

In reference to a number of French literary greats, Albert Camus writes:

"The grand characteristic of these novelists is that...they always say the same

thing and always with the same tone. To be a classic is to repeat oneself" (PT,

1898). In his last interview. Camus says while referring to his plays, essays and

novels: "These different books say, it is true, the same thing. But after all, they

have the same author, and they ail form one single work" (PE. 1926)(1). And in

a different interview, he is asked about what marks the creator. He answers, in

part: "The power of renewal. Without a doubt, he always says the same thing,

but he renews the forms tirelessly" (PE. 1922).

Camus's own literary repetitiveness is quite obvious. What I noticed first

was how many Bernards there are: The doctor in The Plague (La Peste) is named

Bernard Rieux. The one in The Happv Death (La Mort heureuse) is Dr. Bernard.

The teacher in The First Man (Le Premier homme) is Mr. Bernard.

There is the similarity in names between Meursault. from The Stranger

(L'Etranger). and Mersault, from The Happy Death. [Interestingly Jean Mersault

is one of Camus's pseudonyms (Smets, 2, 22).] Jean is the first name of the first Perez in The Happy Death, as it is also the first name of Tarrou, from The

Plague. There is a Jean in The First Man. Catherine is one of the friends of

Mersault, and this woman's name appears again in The First Man as the mother's name. Also, both The Stranger and The Happv Death have restaurant owners named Celeste.

Character names are not the only element of Camus's writing that echoes from text to text. So do certain professions, which will be examined later in this dissertation. Also, many characters tend to have similar characteristics of an 12

intellectual nature, such as that of being atheistic, philosophical, and rebellious.

Fernande Bartfeld believes that .Meursault is discernible in Tarrou. and that

Tarrou and Meursault together can be seen in Clamence. in The Fall (La Chute)

(1, 54). Brian Fitch also finds resemblances between Tarrou and .Meursault (91-

98). G.V. Banks considers Meursault to be perhaps a "composite prototype of

Grand [in The Plague]..." (42). Jacqueline Levi-Valensi also finds resemblances

between Meursault and Grand (199). Yvonne Guers-Villate sees similarities in

how Rieu.x reacts to Rambert's plan to leave Oran and how Daru reacts toward his

Arab guest (229). Bartfeld has pointed out numerous similarities between the

Renegade and Clamence (2. entire article, but especially pages 91-92. 97. 99.

103).

Certain characters have similar e.Kperiences: Richard .'Vkeroyd points out

that both Janine and Meursault have similar e.xistential e.vperiences (111). F.C.

St. Aubyn writes. "Certain similarities can be noted between the scenes in which

the priest visits Meursault in his cell and the scene in which the Grand Duchess

visits Kaliayev in his. Both come with a kind of pardon and forgiveness and both

come with religion in their mind and heart. .\nd both are refused" (138).

Katherine Brearley believes that not one of Camus's characters "is living out a

contented, happy, normal life cycle. His major characters, all men. do not

marry, or if they do there are no children or there is no normal relationship

between parents and children. [...] Women cast their shadows on his pages, but only as mistresses, unsatisfactory wives, or patient moihers--not as partners in

their sorrow or joy" (122). Edouard Morot-Sir has also noticed that female characters are presented in a "marginal fashion" in Camus's work (52-53), but he al.so points out e.xceptions in Camus's theater, particularly in The

Misunderstanding (Le Malentendu) and The Just Assassins (Les Justes). In the 13

former, the mother and daughter are weii-developed characters: in the latter. Dora

has a significant role.

A variety of themes also appear from work to work. In his notebooks.

Camus mentions that his ten favorite words are world, pain, land, mother, men-

desert. honor, misery, summer and sea (3C, 15). Certainly these favorite words

of his manifest themselves repeatedly in his writing, as do many other themes,

which will be examined later. These themes help to interconnect his fiction.

His works are also interconnected in the sense that they sometimes refer to

one another. For example: the newspaper clipping that Meursault finds in his cell

contains in essence a summary of The Misunderstanding. In The Plague. Grand

tells of how he overheard a tobacco saleswomen talk about the arrest in Algiers of

a man who killed an Arab on the beach, which is a clear reference to The

Stranger. A less clear reference between works might include Rambert's statement in The Plague that he participated in the civil war in Spain, which is

the topic of the play Revolt in the Asturias (Revolte dans ies Asturies). Another

less sharp reference between works might be the use of the expression "state of siege" within The Plague, an expression which does allude to the play State of

Siege (L'Etat de siege). Further intertextual connections include Fitch's suggestion that "Jonas or the Artist at Work" ("Jonas ou I'artiste au travail") is

mirrored in The Fall (100-102). and "The Renegade..." ("Le Renegat ou un esprit confus") in Caligula (101-102). Michel Mohrt says that "all that Camus has produced up to this time [1949] is latent in his first book of essays..." (113, translation by Warren Ramsey). Mohrt is referring to NuptiaLs (Noces). and is emphasizing the theme of death as being the predominant recurrent theme.

Why is there such repetitiveness between texts and in themes in Camus's work? Perhaps Jean Grenier, Camus's mentor and friend, has the answer. 14

Referring to Camus, Grenier writes. "He lives what he writes, he writes what he

lives" (PT. xviii). Perhaps Camus simply prefers to write a reflection of his life,

and repeatedly so. Indeed, much of his life is reflected in his books. The

presence of a second and a third Bernard in his works might have something to do

with a certain Jacqueline Bernard, who had alerted him to his impending arrest by

the Nazis, and thus saved his life. The name Catherine as a character name is in

all probability inspired by his own mother's name: Catherine. The name of the

character Sintes, from The Stranger, is her maiden name. The name for the

character Dr. Germain, in "The Silent Ones" ("Les Muets"). was probably

inspired by Louis Germain, the teacher who encouraged Camus and provided him

with supplementary lessons so that he could get a scholarship and continue his

studies. In The First Man, there is an Uncle Etienne—at first called Uncle

Ernest—who is a deaf barrel maker. Camus actually had an Uncle Etienne who

was a deaf barrel maker. In fact, most of the characters in The First Man have

very close counterparts in real life, such as the tyrannical grandmother, the

somewhat flirtatious mother, friends. Not just characters but events in the novel

are highly autobiographical, such as those pertaining to Camus's own school

years, and home life.

*

What I would like to do in this present work is catalogue and e.xamine

recurrent themes in Camus's fiction and study how they are interconnected. I am

not the first to undertake such a task. Several scholars have tried to find a

thematic pattern in Camus's writings. Teodosio Vertone believes that

libertarianism is this pattern. Raymond Gay-Croisier hypothesizes, although with

uncertainty, that Camus's thinking gravitates around the concept of union (10).

Bernard East says. "The essential questions for Camus were to know if it was necessary to accept suicide and murder" (67). Carlo Fonda writes about a "double

love that marks all of his [Camus's] work: that of beauty and that of poverty"

(483). Paul-F. Smets says. "Justice, truth and liberty were keys words for

Camus, key goals" (i. 84). Georges Goedert says. "The theme of happiness is

truly the leitmotif of Albert Camus' literary work" (15). Serge Doubrovsky believes that the theme of the sun is at the foundation of Camus's writings (157).

Maria-Jose Aiion writes. "In a sense, all of his [Camus's] work revolves around the struggle for liberty" (67): however. Andre Abbou disagrees (161). Carmen

Valderrey, at least for Camus's theater, believes that love and Justice are the main themes.

Some scholars have divided Camus's work, or portions of it. into poles, or two parts. Beatriz Guido says. "The work of Albert Camus can perfectly be divided into two parts: Absurd and revolt, suicide and solidarity are the polar pairs of his work" (18). Peter Dunwoodie, working on The Two Sides of the

Coin (L'Envers et I'endroit) and Exile and the Kingdom (L'E.vil et le rovaume). talks about "those [themes] grouped around the pole of 1'envers of the author's e.xperience (old age. death, solitude, time and change); and the themes of

I'endroit (nature, love, harmony, vitality and permanence)" (1, 20). Bethany

Ladimer. working primarily on The Two Sides of the Coin and Nuptials, divides

Camus's work into the mythical and the historical, i.e., into the ideal or positive, and the real or social (e.g., innocence would be mythical, but guilt would be historical: light would be mythical, but darkness historical). Ladimer points out dozens of themes (9-10), and they all presumably fall into one category or the other (mythical or historical): in other words, Camus's work, or at least part of it. consists of the presentation of opposites. Evelyn Zepp provides a slightly alternative view: she acknowledges the presence of poles, but these poles are not 16 in opposition but in simultaneous interaction (390). as in. for example.

"Everything is true and nothing is true," which is how Meursault's lawyer describes the trial proceedings.

So who is right? The above-mentioned scholars make valid points, although some of them may have been quite casual in their observations or may have oversimplified matters. What I would like to present now is what I believe to be a more accurate pattern to Camus's work, a pattern which he himself suggests in The Plague (229). This pattern is based on his world view, a view that essentially maintains that there are scourges, victims and an elusive third domain.

The world view in question has not received much attention. There is considerably more focus on Camus's concepts of the absurd and revolt than on scourges and victims. This last conceptual pair is explained by Tarrou in his confession passage or guillotine passage, as it has been called. He says that

"there are scourges and victims, and nothing more" (229)(2), although he later states that a third domain exists, which I shall discuss shortly.

When Tarrou speaks of scourges, he is being metaphorical. Camus, in one notebook entry, speaks of executioners instead of scourges; "We live in a world in which we must choose to be either victim or executioner—and nothing else" (2C. 141)(3). Here, the term executioner is being used in a rather specific sense, whereas Tarrou uses the term scourge in a more general sense, as the opposite of victim. A scourge is not necessarily an e.xecutioner. as the guillotine passage suggests: poverty and something known as the inner plague are scourges, yet they do not of necessity result in execution, or at least not in literal execution.

One definition of scourge provided by Webster is: "Any cause of serious 17 trouble or affliction." So it would seem that a scourge is an agent. But another definition provided by the same dictionary is: "The punishment or affliction itself." So a scourge is an action, too. So it would seem that a scourge (agent) can cause a scourge (action). In this dissertation, 1 would like to distinguish between the two kinds of scourges, and accordingly use the terms aggressors and aggression to emphasize this difference. An aggressor is an agent. According to

Webster, an aggressor is "a person, nation, etc. that is guilty of aggression, or makes an unprovoked attack." So aggression is what the aggressor causes. An aggression is an action. Camus does not use these terms nor does he separate scourges into these two categories. He uses the encompassing term scourge. But by doing what I intend—differentiating between the two kinds of scourges—we will be better able to see the interrelationships between the various scourges and how they relate to victims, who must deal with the scourges.

Tarrou insists that we avoid being on the side of scourges. In other words, it is better to become victims. One reason for becoming a victim is to minimize the damage inflicted upon others. Another reason is that by becoming a victim, we can perhaps reach the third domain. Tarrou says that this domain is peace, but he first says that it is the domain of true doctors. He is talking about friends: When Rieu.x asks him about his ideas on arriving at the third domain,

Tarrou answers. "Yes, sympathy" (229), which is the beginning of friendship. So this third domain consists of peace and friends. In his notebooks. Camus talks about friends as being a source of happiness, another term for peace.

The first step in my study will be to e.xamine those scourges that function as agents (aggressors) in Camus's fiction, both human and non-human (Chapter

1). I shall then examine scourges as action, i.e.. aggression (Chapter 2). The third chapter of my study will deal with victims. In the fourth chapter, I shall 18 touch on the third domain. A few final thoughts will be found in the Afterword.

Each chapter is divided into thematic sections. For most chapter sections.

I shall start off with what The Plague has to say on the topic being treated. Then

Camus's other pertinent fictional works will be covered in approximate chronological order. For the sake of simplicity. I intend to discuss Camus's characters as if they were real people, even though he uses them as literary

(fictional) devices. I shall then end each chapter section with an e.xamination of what Camus's notebooks and/or other nonfiction works have to say about the topic being considered.

I should mention that the title of this dissertation of mine. The Plague in

Albert Camus's Fiction, is somewhat misleading. The Plague appears not literally but thematically in Camus's other works of fiction. 19

Chapter 1: Aggressors (Scourge as Agent)

1.1.- The Plague

The plague creeps up to e.vercise its tyranny in Oran. an African desert city that Camus knew well. Francine Faure. his second wife, was from Oran. In

February of 1940, Camus was teaching there in a private school, although by

March he was in Paris working for Paris-Soir. But by the following January, he was once again in Oran.

The events in the novel are .said to have begun in 194—. Internal evidence suggests a more precise date of 1941. We can come to this date because Camus mentions that "seventy years ago, forty thousand rats died of the plague" in

Canton (42). This plague took place there in 1871; thus, 1871 plus 70 is 1941.

The plague is not recognized right away. .Although there are thousands of rats dying all over the city, in streets and in homes, it takes the inhabitants of

Oran quite some time to realize that there is something dangerous going on.

Even the doctors of the city fail to recognize it in a timely fashion. In fact, it is

Panelou.v, a Catholic priest, who is the first to realize that an epidemic is at hand.

Rieu.\ himself, a doctor, is hesitant to acknowledge that the plague has arrived. As a doctor, he should have been able to recognize the plague even while it still affected only the rats. The symptoms of the bubonic plague—the first version to appear--are altogether discernible. Raymond Stephanson spells out the symptoms: "Painful swellings in the groin and armpits, coughing, swollen tongue, thirst, fever, impaired vision, aching limbs, and delirium..." (226). So why did the identification of the plague prove so elusive at first? 20

Tarrou notes that Rieux "is inattentive behind the wheel of his car and

often leaves his turn signal on" (34). Perhaps this inattentiveness overflows into

his professional life, causing him a slowdown in intellectual perception. This

inattentiveness might be caused by his professional life in the sense that he is a

hard worker and is thus perhaps often tired. We do learn that well before the

plague started affecting people to any significant e.xtent. Rieu.x would visit the

elderly asthmatic last of all, at ten at night, which suggests that Rieu.x must have

had a lot of patients. His inattentiveness might also be due to concern over his sick wife. But what about the other doctors in the novel?

Rieux is a doctor in his mid-thirties. The other doctors mentioned in the

novel are on the elderly side, doctors who are perhaps not as intellectually nimble as they could be because of their age. although it is Castel, an older doctor, who eventually convinces Rieux that the sickness at hand is the plague rather than some fever or other disease. Later Castel goes repeatedly to the library to

research information on the plague and then talks to Rieux again about the

plague, this time pointing out with greater assuredness that the rats died of the

plague "or of something that re.sembled it a lot" (62). He also tells Rieux that fleas will transmit the plague, as if he or any other educated person did not already know this!

Failure to recognize the plague in a timely matter may not entirely be due to a lack of awareness on the part of Oran's doctors. The plague does exhibit unusual characteristics. Dr. Richard notes that it is not contagious because the relatives of the victims are not affected (52). although later in the novel it is strongly suspected that it is indeed contagious. Rieux also says that the "bacillus is bizarre" (58)(4). not fitting the traditional description.

Since Oran is a port city, the aggressor in question probably came in by 21

sea. But how did the plague get a hold of the city? Let us consider some of

Rieu.x's commentary on Oran: He says. "What is most original in our city is the

difficulty that one can find there in dying" (12) (5). Rieux further clarifies that

difficulty is not the right word, but that it would be better to speak of a lack of

comfort. He then says: "But in Oran. the climatic extremes, the importance of

the business carried out there, the insignificance of the decor, the quickness of

twilight and the quality of pleasures, all ask for good health. A sick person finds

himself to be quite alone there" (13). Although people tended to be healthy Just

before the plague. Rieux also notes that the sanitary conditions were not good.

Raymond Rambert. a Journalist, had come from Paris to investigate rumors that

the health conditions of the .^rabs were less than acceptable. We learn

throughout the novel that a lack of awareness regarding hygiene exists among the

citizens of Oran. At a certain point in the novel, posters are set up informing

citizens with fleas to present themselves at the municipal clinics. Such posters

would not have been set up if not for the presence of a significant number of

flea-invested people. Later in the novel, we learn of a certain cafe that Rambert

and Cottard visit, a cafe with a parrot cage on the counter and a rooster strutting

about. There are even moist rooster droppings on the tables--hardiy hygienic at

all. Oran was a time bomb ready to explode with disease.

When the bomb does explode, it is the bubonic form of the plague that

first comes on the scene, as 1 mentioned above. The pulmonary form eventually

comes along and ultimately takes the lead. .As far as I am aware, the septicaemic

form (collapsing and dying suddenly) does not appear in Oran.

To get a better perspective on the plague in The Plague, let us examine

the plague in A Journal of the Plague Year, by Daniel Defoe. We do know that

Camus was familiar with Defoe's account of the plague in London, and was to some extent inspired by it. although similarities between the two works are

superficial.

Defoe's plague manifests itself in all three forms. It also e.xerts more of a

death toll than does Camus's plague. One reason might be that the people of

London are so convinced of imminent death, they take no precautions. Death is everywhere. Defoe mentions that pregnant women are having trouble finding

midwives. People start seeing signs in the sky, letting their imaginations go wild. Calamity is proclaimed in the streets: "Yet forty Days, and LONDON shall be destroy'd" (21). God is bringing doom, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. But in Oran. the plague is not as fearsome. Most of the inhabitants

"cling to a blind, facile optimism " (Glicksberg. 57). .According to Zepp, "The plague destroys, but it is also a regenerative force, insofar as it allows the collective experience and a new awareness of life" (400). This statement is significant. In Oran. people work together, whereas in London, people avoid one another. Being together makes the plague seem less threatening.

Although the narrator in Defoe's work is a religious person, he nevertheless makes the case that the plague is of natural origin rather than of divine provenance. The plague is a microbe. But the narrator does seem to imply that the plague finally subsides because of divine intervention and continues to remain out of the way even though people returning to London unearth plagued bodies while in the process of building homes. Defoe notes that even a woman's hair is recognizable among the unearthed bodies. Matters are definitely more tame in Camus's The Plague.

*

Defoe says that Just before the London plague, two comets passed over the city, with one of them coming so clo.se to houses that it could faintly be heard. Something similar happens in Camus's play State of Siege, which is about a

plague striking Cadix. Spain: a comet comes so close that it can be heard. In fact, a woman catches it and brings it down to waist level. This comet is an omen of the impending arrival of a human plague, whom I shall call the plague man.

He is in essence an incarnation of the plague. He makes people sick: he makes people die He has a secretary, who does most of his dirty work. He has city officials doing things his way. although usually against their wills—some characters are in agreement, such as Nada the drunkard, who says "Suppression, that's my gospel" (PT. 278)(6).

The plague man. in addition to being the plague, is also a tyrant, since he bosses everyone around. In the Barrault production of the play, the plague man wears a Nazi uniform (Freeman. 92).

The plague man does not kill off people to the degree that one sees in The

Plague. Why? It might be because he already considers most of them to be in a state similar to death: He wants everyone to have a certificate of existence, yet in order to get one. a certificate of health is required, but to get a certificate of health, a certificate of existence is necessary. The plague man is definitely making it difficult for citizens to have their existence acknowledged, which hints at their being dead or thereabouts.

*

Although notes on The Plague abound in Camus's notebooks, little is found on the actual nature of the plague. There is a noteworthy slice of dialogue pertaining to The Plague: The first statement is. "I desire something that is just."

The response is, "Behold precisely the plague" (IC. 245). This short interchange is isolated and without an accompanying explanation. One possible explanation is that the plague does not discriminate—it kills both the poor and the rich, the

criminal and the judge, the religious and the non-religious. It is perhaps in this sense that it is Just.

What inspired Camus to write about a plague infestation? Germaine Bree suggests that it was Antonin Artaud's The Theater and Its Double (Le Theatre et son double) (2. 98). The title of the first chapter of Artaud's book is "The

Theater and the Plague." According to Artaud. the plague is a representation of evil, including political evil. Since The Plague is an allegory of the Nazi occupation, it is understandable why Camus could choose the plague to represent it. since the plague can symbolize political evil. Jacqueline Bernard recounts an incident that clearly associates the plague with Nazism. She says that Camus gave her a copy of The Plague as soon as it was published, and he inscribed in it

"To J., survivor of the plague" (165). She explains that this "was a reference to

[her] recent return from a German concentration camp where [she] had been sent for belonging to one of the underground organizations of the French Resistance.

It was precisely in this organization movement that [she] had first met him"

(165).

Another explanation as to why Camus chose to write about a plague can perhaps be found in an article by George Jagger. He believes that "the novel deals essentially with man's fate as Pascal saw it. and as Voltaire faced it" (125).

According to Jagger. Camus's choosing of the plague is a way of combining the world perspectives of the two philosophers because the plague is an evil that makes man miserable and it is also an evil that can be combated by man. I shall further explain: According to Pascal, the present is unbearable, so one therefore either dwells in the past, dreams about the future or turns toward God—we see all of this in The Plague. But according to Voltaire, we should forget about time 25

and God. and engage in action. This is what Rieu.\ and others do. A plague can

set up both conditions, whereas something like an earthquake cannot, since an

earthquake cannot have action taken against it. it cannot be fought. It is dealt

with after it has happened, but a plague can be fought while it is in progress.

The plague introduces Pascal's unbearableness of the present and Voltaire's insistence in dealing with it. As unusual as all of this may sound, there might be some truth to it. Camus admired both philosophers, especially Pascal. Camus might have indeed been trying to reconcile the two philosophers in his writing of

The Plague, but it is not very clear. 26

1.2.- Other Tyrants

Caligula, in the play of the same title, is evocative of the plague man. in

State of Siege. Bree associates Caligula with the disease form of the plague (1.

33). So does St. Aubyn. pointing out that both the plague and Caligula practice

tyranny (127). Caligula himself says that he is replacing the plague (IV. i.\).

Although less deadly, Caligula, the insane Roman emperor, is still quite

unpleasant. Bree says that Caligula "consistently identifies himself with the arbitrary, derisive or cruel forces that destroy human security" (i, 23). In the second act, we learn that he confiscates the goods of one patrician, abducts the wife of another and kills the son of yet another. For three years. Caligula has been calling the elderly patrician "little woman." which is insulting to the man.

Caligula also makes the patricians run every evening for their health, whether they like it or not. At a meal. Caligula has the patricians set the table. While eating, he spits out the olive pits into the plates of his immediate table neighbors.

He then leaves and takes Mucius's wife with him after licking her shoulder in

Mucius's presence. Some time later, Caligula appears dressed like Venus.

Everyone, e.xcept Scipion. bows down. Caesonia. a female philosopher, leads a litany (A possible mocking of Catholicism by Camus?). Caligula then alleges that a man can indeed do the "ridiculous job" of the gods. But to the good fortune of the patricians, Caligula comes to an end, as do his three years of insanity and tyranny.

Another aggressor that could be classified as a tyrant is the grandmother in

The First Man. She is in charge of the household. She bosses around those of her adult children who live under the same roof as she. and she most definitely bosses around her grandchildren. But unlike Caligula, who is insane. Grandma is 27 quite intelligent despite her lack of education—she does not even know how to read. Also in contrast to Caligula. Grandma is not tyrannical in a malicious manner. She is stern out of the necessity imposed upon her by an even more powerful aggressor: poverty. So an aggressor, the grandmother, can also be a victim. She is e.xplicitly called a tyrant by Camus, but she also serves at the table. Although she is surly so much of the time, there is goodness in her.

Other tyrants do materialize in Camus's works, but not much is said about them. There is. for e.xample. the Grand Duke. All that we learn about him is that he has a Christian wife, a niece, a nephew, and a fondness for theater and

Justice. It is assumed that he is nowhere close to being like Caligula, even though he can probably exert the same sort of control over others. He is probably even nicer than Grandma, since he does not have to put up with poverty.

Other possible tyrants include the Spanish government in Revolt in the

Asturias. and its right hand: the soldiers who go around killing the miners on strike. The legal system in The Stranger perhaps also falls into the category of tyrants. Since this legal system is highly associated with the concept of the inner plague. I shall discuss it in the following .section, which is on the inner plague.

*

In his notebooks, we learn that Camus contemplated writing a short story or novel that he tentatively called Justice. It would have been about a man tortured by being forced to stand for five days without leaning against anything, and without food and water. When people come to help him escape, he refuses because of his fatigue. He is eventually tortured some more and dies as a result

(2C. 216). If people continue to submit to tyranny even when there is a clear way out, it might be because "the greatest passion of the twentieth century [is] servitude" (2C. 334)(7). It is indeed generally easier to submit than to revolt. 28

But Camus is clear on what we should nevertheless strive to do: In Actuelles III, he states that the task of men of culture is to "help mankind against that which oppresses him. to favor his liberty against the fates that surround him" (PE. 999).

For as long as there is power, there will be injustice, since "power can't be separated from injustice" {3C. 218). And the desire for power is everywhere. In a note for The First Man. Camus e.xplains that the "drive behind the characters: the desire for power, psychologically speaking" (3C. 150). This is significant because the main character of the novel—like many of the secondary characters—is a child during much of the work. The child eventually acquires power as an adult, and e.xercises it. Since power and injustice go hand in hand, Jacques does his share of injustice, but his power is a "good power," which Camus defines as

"the sane and prudent administration of injustice" (3C. 218). What is sane and prudent injustice? Perhaps it is sane terrorism, an important theme in Camus's writings. Jacques does eventually become a terrorist, a sort of tyrant. (Although the published version of The First Man does not have this account, Camus's notes indicate his intention of having Jacques fight for Algeria as a terrorist.) 29

1.3.- The Inner Plague

Tarrou tells Rieux that he. Tarrou. suffered from the plague even before

coming to Oran. Tarrou is not talking literally of the plague but of a

metaphysical plague, an inner plague, which Tarrou claims everyone carries.

I should point out that although Tarrou does use the term inner plague, he

is not in the habit of using it. He ordinarily uses the French word fleau to refer

to the mental manifestation of the plague. This is significant because, in the rest of the novel, the word pe.ste is generally used. Although both words mean

plague, fleau is a more general term, encompassing a wider range of scourges.

The word peste is typically used to refer to the actual disease. However, when

referring to victims of the inner plague, Tarrou uses the term pestifere. which is obviously derived from the more precise term. Why does he use this word instead of one derived from fleau? The explanation is probably simple: French does not have a term derived from fleau. The closest word to what Tarrou wants to express is pestifere.

What the inner plague consists of is a matter of some dispute. Since

Tarrou's illustration of it has similarities to events in The Stranger, the inner

plague may merely be another name for the absurd. Another interpretation is that the inner plague is falsehood in all of its various manifestations. A case can be made for this interpretation because Tarrou is quite obsessed with the opposite of falsehood: truth. He tells Rambert, "At my age, one is inevitably sincere. Lying is too tiresome" (188) (8). Tarrou also explains that it is the honest man who hardly infects anyone, i.e., with the inner plague (228). And when Tarrou gets sick, he insists that Rieux keep him informed of everything regarding his illness, which he suspects is the plague. As it turns out, he has the symptoms of both the 30

manifestations of the plague appearing in Oran. He is doubly infected. The

following day. Tarrou starts to breathe more easily. When Tarrou asks Rieu.x if

this means anything. Rieu.x is honest and says that it means nothing and points

out that there is usually a morning remission. In other words. Tarrou is not

getting better, and would probably die.

To see more clearly how truth fits into Tarrou's e.xplanation of the inner

plague, let us e.xamine how he got involved with it: He started engaging in

politics to bring an end to capital punishment, and he engaged in politics all over

Europe. He did not want to be a victim of the lie that capital punishment is a

necessary evil. But he then says that he and his fellow crusaders pronounced

certain condemnations. He was told that "these few deaths were necessary to

bring about a world in which no one would be killed" (226). But he e.xperienced an enlightenment, a truth, when he actually got to witness an e.xecution. It was an unpleasant sight, a death by firing squad. Tarrou mentions to Rieu.x that the

riflemen aim for the heart and leave a hole large enough for a fist to fit into.

Tarrou realized that he was a pestifere. since he had agreed to at least some death sentences.

The legal system, which condones capital punishment, is an avenue for the inner plague. Tarrou says that the great pestiferes are those who wear red robes, i.e.. lawyers, and in particular, prosecutors. This is true not only because prosecutors are eager for the death penally—according to Tarrou—but also because of the grandiose language that lawyers use. a language that twists the truth and makes events appear differently from what they really are. Tarrou says that "all the misfortunes of men [come] from not sticking to clear language" (229). In response to this observation. Tarrou decided to henceforth speak and act clearly.

Dr. Rieux is in tune with the importance of truth and the effect of the 31

knowledge it provides. We see this, in part, near the beginning of the novel,

when he first meets Ramberi and learns that he is a journalist. Rieux asks him if

he can tell the truth. Asking such a question of a journalist implies a strong

interest in the truth—or at least a strong distrust of journalists. Later in the

novel, and also before Tarrou's discourse on the inner plague. Rieu.x says that the only way to fight the plague is with honesty (151). Although he does not know

what honesty is in general, he does say that "in my case. I know it consists of doing my job" (151). His job consists of saving people's lives—the opposite of

what some prosecutors do. We also see Rieux's fascination or perhaps obsession with the truth in the very writing of The Plague, of which he is the author.

Rieux seems to report everything, even providing us with the number of dead rats on specific days. He cites Tarrou's notes to quite some extent to add credibility to his own writing. Rieux reports the very words of Panelou.x's sermons. He even reports trivial conversations.

*

The concepts of truth and falsehood are common in Camus's fiction. In

The Happy Death. Mersault is living a lie in the sense that he is living another man's life, that of Zagreus. Mersault kills Zagreus for his money, even though it is at Zagreus's invitation. Zagreus cannot live his life—in the sense of enjoying it—because of his handicap. He is confined to a wheelchair and feels also that he is confined to his home. According to current thinking, being handicapped does not exclude the individual from participating in life, but back in the Thirties. when the action in the novel takes place, being handicapped was looked down upon. Zagreus is regarded as being inferior by society simply because he does not have the use of his legs. Zagreus cannot tolerate this inner plague of society, and thus seeks to end his life with Mersault's help. The Stranger can be assumed to be an extended version of Tarrou's discussion on the inner plague. What is most noteworthy in this novel is the ideological contrast we see in it: We have Meursault. who refuses for the most part to lie; and we have a legal system that flourishes on falsehood and deception.

Meursault is found guilty, but not just of having killed a man. He is also guilty, and more so, of sending his mother to the old people's home, of not crying as the result of her death, of not wanting to see her dead body, of not knowing her age. of smoking, of drinking coffee just after her death

Some insight into The Stranger can be found in the preface of its

American university edition, signed by Camus on January 8. 1955. He writes that Meursault is condemned because "he doesn't play the game" (PT. 1928).

Although the lawyers put on quite a display of inner plague, the judges and jury do likewise by going along with the performance. It can be said that society is a manifestation of the inner plague, a plague that wants Meursault's head. In the preface just mentioned. Camus says that Meursault is the only Christ that we deserve, since he died for truth. "To lie," Camus also says in the preface, "is not only to say what isn't. It's also, and above all. to say more than there is. and in regard to the human heart, [it's] to say more than one feels" (PT. 1928). If

Meursault had lied at the trial and to his lawyer, perhaps concocting some believable explanation for the extra four shots, he would have been acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. Camus explains that people lie to simplify matters.

Meursault could have done so to save his neck. In The Mvth of Sisvphus (Le

Mvthe de Sisvphe). we are reminded that Galileo possessed truth of a scientific nature, but when it put his life at stake, he publicly disavowed it. That particular truth was not worth losing his life over. He fought fire with fire: he used a lie to fight an even bigger lie. Meursault could have used the inner plague to fight the 33

inner plague. He is capable of falsehood. Robert Solomon points out how

Meursault wrote a letter for Raymond in order to "deceive the Arab girl and expose her to humiliation, and he later lies to the police to get Raymond discharged" (143).

Falsehood is at the heart of The Misunderstanding. Jan ends up murdered by his own sister and mother because of his deception. The sister and mother in turn commit suicide because of the deception. Jan's wife also suffers from the separation caused by her husband's death. All the suffering and death could have been avoided if Jan had only been straightforward regarding his identity.

In the preface to the American theater edition (dated December. 1957. under the title Caligula and Three Other Plays). Camus says that "man can save himself and save others by the use of the most simple sincerity and the most precise word" (PT, 1731). In a preface to The .Misunderstanding (found in his files), Camus writes. "If the man wants to be recognized, he should simply say who he is. If he keeps quiet or lies, he dies alone, and everything around him is pledged to misfortune. If on the other hand he tells the truth, he'll die without a doubt, but after having helped others and himself to live" (PT, 1793). Sincerity and clarity are at least partial cures for the inner plague.

In State of Siege, the secretary is suffering from the inner plague.

Contrary to Tarrou's stance that people should use clear language, the secretary takes the opportunity to purposefully speak in an obscure fashion. She says that it is to accustom people to obscurity. Why? "The less they understand, the better they'll work" (PT, 222) (9). If people do not do as she wishes, she kills them with a stroke of a pen. So in order to live, it is best to understand little in order to work better, or so it seems in this play.

But perhaps it is Nada who best personifies the inner plague in State of 34

Siege. His name is the Spanish word for nothing. Because of it. he becomes an official. His motto: "God denies the world, and I deny God! Long live nothingness, since it's the only thing that e.xists" (PT. 237) (10). We see in this last sentence a lack of clarity or straightforwardness, for how can nothingness be the only thing that exists? Do the words on this page not exist because they don't constitute nothingness? Or are they nothingness because they exist? A lack of clarity constitutes one of the characteristics of the inner plague. This characteristic is perceived likewise in the scene where a woman and Nada speak at the same time. The effect is that neither of them are understood.

Nada is also a liar. Diego the doctor says. "Lying is always foolishness"

(PT. 195). A fool is exactly what Nada appears to be. Even the plague man thinks that Nada is bereft of reason. Although a fool, Nada eventually comes to realize that he is in the wrong. We see this at the end of the play, just after the demise of the plague man. Nada throws himself into the sea to avoid being caught and prosecuted. The fisherman says: "That lying mouth is filling itself with salt and will finally shut itself up" (PT, 300).

The theme of falsehood has also made its way into The Just Assassins, although not to as great an extent as in other works. As Stepan, one of the terrorists, notes: "Everyone lies. To lie well, behold what's needed" (PT. 313)

(11).

John the Baptist proclaimed the sins of his time: Jean-Baptiste Clamence. in The Fall, proclaims the sins of our time, although he is not as spiritual as John the Baptist. Clamence believes that, "Truth, like light, blinds. Lies, on the other hand, are a beautiful twilight and place every object in perspective" (140)

(12). He recounts that for most of his life he lived the lie of society, and as a result, was a model citizen. He became a lie. When he comes to realize that he is a coward, he becomes a penitent judge, i.e.. someone who practices public

confession, a confession that contains lies by his own admission. What we

should note is that the problem is not e.xclusively with Clamence. but more so

with a society that seems to reward hypocrisy.

Falsehood is an important theme in The First Man. In his notebooks.

Camus writes. "Lies are easy [for Jacquesl. but [he suffers] from terrible attacks

of truth" (3C, 97). The source of the problem is Grandma. On several

occasions, she involves him in falsehood. At times, it is not serious, such as

when she proclaims aloud at silent movies that she has forgotten her glasses and

will need Jacques to read the film to her. She does this to avoid the

embarrassment of not knowing how to read. At other times, engaging in

falsehood is a challenge for Jacques. He says. "But if lies seemed to be venial

within the family, they seemed mortal with strangers" (242). This is especially

true in matters of employment. Jacques has to work between school terms in order to help support the family, but finding a temporary Job for the summer is difficult. Employers are interested primarily in hiring permanent personnel.

Grandma's solution is to have Jacques lie about how long he is planning to stay.

On one occasion. Grandma is talking to a prospective employer and is telling him that Jacques is quitting school because the family is too poor. During the conversation. Jacques is so nervous that he is trembling. He gets the job. but when the school term begins. Jacques must take off. The employer becomes furious after figuring out that both Jacques and his grandmother always knew that

Jacques was returning to school.

*

Camus was quite obses.sed with truth. In his notebooks, there is one haunting entry that says nothing but, "Truth. Truth!" (3C. 204). Camus sounds 36

axiomatic when he says, "Prefer truth to everything" (2C. 312). Truth is a

pursuit, a way of life: "To live is to verify" (2C. 256). Truth is described as

having seemingly magical qualities; "Truth is the only power, brisk.

inexhaustible. If we were capable of only living of and for truth: immortal

youthful energy within us. The man of truth does not age. Yet an effort, and he will not die" (3C. 233).

Camus's obsession with truth eventually led him to question morality. His words spill forth the agony of his resulting experience:

"For years I've wanted to live according to everyone's morality. I've forced myself to live like everyone else, to resemble everyone else. [...] It has been a catastrophe. I now wander among the debris. I am without law. alone and accepting to be so, resigned to my singularity and my infirmities. And I must reconstruct a truth—after having lived all my life in a kind of lie" {3C, 266).

Camus was perhaps more fascinated with falsehood than with truth. He contemplated writing a play called The Liar, and even wrote up an outline

(3C,115). In Actuelles II. he complains about the lack of truth in newspapers.

He says that nine out of ten of them lie "more or less" (PE, 725). He also says that they are to varying degrees the spokespersons of hatred. The more they hate, the more they lie. Camus e.xplains. Robert de Luppe. in regard to the inner plague, has also allied hatred and lying, plus he has tacked on pride (97).

Emmanuel Robles. a friend of Camus, writes about an interview he had with Camus for Radio Algiers in November of 1947. In the interview. Robles asks Camus if it is true that The Plague will be put on the silver screen as the newspapers announced. Camus answers, "Journalists often proceed faster than truth! That's why it's so profitable to read them" (121-22). Robles then mentions that the newspapers said that Camus would have a role in the film.

Camus responds, "I learned about it in fact from the newspapers. But it was 37 completely new to me and very instructive" (122).

But truth has honorable bounds. Even Tarrou resorted to lying at least once, even though he is the one who gave the speech on the inner plague. He did it to spare Othon unnecessary anguish; When Othon asked about his dead son's suffering, Tarrou says that the child did not really suffer. In fact the boy suffered considerably more than did other victims of the plague.

In his own life. Camus also realized that truth has bounds. During the war, for e.xample. Camus had false papers and a false name. He needed them to stay alive. 38

1.4.- Poverty

Poverty is an aggressor in Oran. and was present well before the arrival of the plague. Many of the main characters are victims of poverty. Grand is a poorly paid office worker who is barely making it. He married a poor girl,

Jeanne. He is also poor in the sense that he no longer has Jeanne.

Tarrou used to be poor. He experienced poverty when he was eighteen years old. He became poor after leaving home to be away from his execution- loving lawyer father.

Dr. Rieux was poor as a child and is still poor, even though he is a doctor. We know of his poverty from the scene at the train station: While his wife is settling into the sleeping car and notices her compartment, she says. "It's too expensive for us, isn't it?" (17). A train compartment would be too expensive for a doctor only if the doctor was poor. Rieux is poor probably because he caters to the poor, who cannot pay him much or not at all. He writes that he starts his rounds with the poorest of his patients, which implies that he later sees those patients who are less poor. There is no mention of rich patients, so perhaps the bulk of his patients are poor.

Of course, being poor has its negative effects. Tarrou tells us that his mother was poor up until the moment she got married. According to him, this poverty explained her attitude of not giving a hoot about anything. This attitude did not change despite the change in her financial status upon marriage.

In Oran. garbage collection in the poor areas is done much later than in other regions. This sends us a message concerning city officials. As the plague progresses, the price of basic goods becomes extravagant. This hurts the poor most of all. causing them to e,xperience hunger. The narrator writes that the poor have it in their heads that, since they cannot be fed within the city, they should

be permitted to leave. "Bread or air" becomes their slogan, which is sometimes

written on walls, and sometimes screamed out while the prefect passes by. In

Defoe's account of the plague in London, charity money pours into the city.

Supplies are sufficient. Matters could have been the same in Oran, but since

World War II was in progress, supplies may have been hard to come by.

*

Poverty is a frequent visitor to Camus's other fiction. In "The Adulterous

Woman" ("La Femme adultere"). we learn of men who "possessed nothing but served no one" (Exile and the Kingdom. 27). In State of Siege, poverty also shows up. The two most noticeable examples involve a poor man being abandoned by a priest, and a woman losing her home so that administrative

matters can be done there. She ends up living in the street with her children. In

"The Rock That Grows" ("La Pierre qui pousse"). which is in Exile and the

Kingdom, poverty manifests itself in the form of blacks being so poor that they go around barefoot, but these blacks are happy. They seem to do nothing but

party. Camus offers an explanation for such happiness in one of his articles for

L'Express. He points out an observation by Beatrix Beck: "Being poor among the poor is nothing, but being poor in the presence of the rich is too bitter" (Ex 126).

The blacks in "The Rock that Grows" are at most in the presence of the middle class or more likely the low middle class, so they are happy.

In other fiction works by Camus, poverty is right at the foundation of the plot. In The Happy Death. Mersault starts off poor, but this is not overly unpleasant for him—at first. Before his mother's death, "poverty at his mother's side had a sweetness. When they were together in the evening and ate silently around the petroleum lamp, there was a secret happiness in this simplicity and 40

suppression" (40)(13). But matters change after the mother's death. AH of a

sudden, "poverty in solitude was a frightful misery" (41). This leads Mersault to

help Zagreus in his assisted suicide so that he can end up with Zagreus's money.

In The Misunderstanding, it is poverty or perceived poverty that leads to

the murder of Jan. Although rich and intending to share his wealth, he is killed

for the money in his pocket, killed by his own mother and sister.

In The Just Assassins, poverty is an element in a discussion that takes

place in prison between Kaliayev and Foka. a fellow prisoner. Kaliayev starts

telling him of a world in which no one would thirst because no one would be ashamed. There would be no more poverty. Everyone would be brothers. Foka

thinks he is talking about the kingdom of God, but Kaliayev answers. "God can do nothing. Justice is our business" (PE. 361)(14). Kaliayev is implying that

poverty comes from injustice, and that by combating it. we combat poverty.

Kaliayev is in prison indirectly because of his fight against the poverty of the

masses, for which he blames the Grand Duke, whom he killed.

In The Artist's Life (La Vie d'artiste). we learn that injustice is not the only source of poverty. So is idiosyncratic behavior. In the silent play in question (PT. 2054-61), the artist does his job as he should and becomes famous and well-off financially. But then he develops eccentricities in how he goes about doing his craft. He seems to go insane. People lose interest in his work, and as a result, he becomes poor. It is the stress of the poverty that is perhaps behind the death of the artist's wife. What happens in The Artist's Life is strongly mirrored in the short story "Jonas or the Artist at Work." except that the wife does not die, but she suffers nevertheless.

In The Fall, we learn that poverty engenders contempt. Clamence tells the story of a Russian property owner who would arrange the whipping of both the 41

peasants who greeted him and those who did not. since he found both behaviors

to be equally bold. We learn from Camus's notebooks that Dostoevski's father

did likewise.

Of all of Camus's works of fiction, it is in his last one where poverty is

the most felt, both by the characters and by the reader. The published version of

The First Man is the story of Camus's own poverty-stricken childhood. The

novel begins with a scene of poverty: a "poorly clothed" mother is pregnant and is about to give birth to Jacques, who represents Camus. Later, for school. Jacques generally receives no pocket money. Poverty even keeps him from what he truly likes: soccer. It is forbidden to him becau.se the field is covered with cement, which causes the soles of his shoes to wear out quickly. His grandmother even has nails driven into the soles (not just the heels) to expand their life span, since the nails have to wear down before the soles can (84).

Once after doing some shopping for the family. Jacques is walking back home when a two-franc coin falls out of his pocket through a hole. He retrieves the coin. It then occurs to him that he can use the money to go see a soccer match. When he gets home, he tells his grandmother that the two-franc coin fell into the hole that serves as a toilet. Grandma rolls up her sleeve and searches for the coin but does not find it. She calls Jacques a liar. The narrator tells us that

Grandma did not look for the money out of avarice but out of necessity. Such was the poverty.

Jacques's mother works cleaning floors and doing the laundry of others.

When Jacques has to report her profession on a school form, he is ashamed. He is also ashamed of being ashamed. But before he began working himself, he had known the "riches and joys of poverty" (248). Work changed his perspective because of the "unending monotony [that] succeed[ed| at the same time in making the days too long and life too short" (248). As in "The Rock That Grows." with its happy but poor blacks who apparently party all the time, poverty is a matter of perspective.

*

When Camus was seventeen, he read La Douleur (Pain), by Andre de

Richaud. From reading this book. Camus realized that poverty, as well as other aspects in his life, could be "said." This was the beginning of his literary career.

Camus's private writings show a degree of respect for the poor. One anecdote that caught my attention is his account of how a certain man did not go to bed with a prostitute who had solicited him even though he wanted to have sex with her. The problem was that he only had a thousand-franc note and did not dare ask for change. And in another anecdote, this time dealing with himself,

Camus tells of a man who had just come out of a hospital and had nowhere to stay. In the streetcar, he asks Camus for twenty sous but receives five francs.

The man cries and says that Camus understands him.

After Camus had won the Nobel Prize, he wrote. "Strange feeling of dejection and melancholy. At 20 years of age. poor and naked. I knew true glory" (3C. 214). Poverty also does not seem to be too much of an aggressor when Camus says, "What can a man better desire than poverty? I did not say misery But I can't see what more one can desire than poverty tied to an active leisure" (2C, 88). The difference between poverty and misery can perhaps best be seen by comparing the essay "Misery of the Kabyle Region" (Actuelles

III) with The First Man. In the essay, we learn of children going to school naked and full of fleas: this is not the case with Jacques and his schoolmates. In the essay, we are told that children competed with dogs for the scraps of food found in garbage cans: this does not happen in The First Man. 43

Poverty is seen more often than not as a negative manifestation. Early in his literary career. Camus wrote. "I believe that the world of the poor is one of the rare [worlds], if not the only one to be folded in upon itself, that's an island in society" (IC. 16). In his travel Journal, while at Marseilles and ready to leave by ship to South America. Camus writes. "Feeling of shame upon seeing the passengers of fourth class" (V55). And near the end of his literary career, during his second trip to Greece: "The poverty, the abandon of the streets and of the houses tighten the heart to the point that we return [to the ship] without looking forward to anything else" (3C. 266). Not only can one's own poverty be painful, but also the poverty of others. 44

1.5.- Infirmity (Physical and Mental)

Characters in The Plague do not always take care of their health. Rieux.

for example, is not one for getting enough sleep, at least after the plague is at

full throttle. Tarrou is a smoker. Grand has no upper teeth, which was perhaps

caused by his eating too much sugary food—food that was also perhaps quite

fattening, since Grand also suffers from a narrowing of the aorta. And the

elderly asthmatic does not get much exercise. He stays in bed most of the time,

even though he does not have to. Barton Palmer says of him, "His life

deliberately excludes 'doing.' His one 'activity.' passing peas from one pot to

another, does no more than mark the passage of time. Yet he is fully conscious

of life, eager to live to a ripe old age " (35).

But the main health problem in The Plague is by far the plague. The first

description of the suffering it causes is that of a rat's agony. It has wet fur: it is staggering. It lets out "a low cry and finally falls while throwing up blood" (15).

The first human victim of the disease is the concierge.

The plague first displays itself in the bubonic form. The pulmonary form

comes sometime later, and is said to be more deadly and contagious, since it can

be transmitted from mouth to mouth, whereas the bubonic form requires the assistance of fleas. It is possible to have both forms, as Tarrou discovers the

hard way. It is not a pretty sight. Tarrou's lips appear to be cemented by a

whitish foam. He also has a "kind of visceral cough" (261) and spits blood.

Grand gets only the pulmonary version of the plague: "And from the depths of his lungs in flames came forth a bizarre crackling sound that accompanied everything that he said" (237). Unlike Tarrou, who succumbs.

Grand is cured. Non-plague pulmonary disease is also quite common in The Plague. At

the beginning of the novel. Rieux's wife leaves for a health center in the

mountains, which suggests that she has some sort of respiratory problem. Near

the end of the novel, we learn that she dies of it. We also learn of a certain

Camps, who has a "weak chest" (30). He is a musician who plays the cornet.

Tarrou criticizes him for risking his life by playing it in religious parades.

Camps also dies, although it is not clear if it is of the plague. And finally we

have Paneloux, who dies of a swelling and a blockage of the lungs. He has a

strangling cough that is described as being hoarse and humid. After each coughing episode, he falls back in his bed as if exhausted. He eventually

manages to cough up a certain red mass, but this does not keep him away from the grave. Although he lacks the major symptoms of the plague, Rieux nevertheless suspects that Paneloux had it.

There is only one victim of non-plague respiratory problems who does not die in The Plague, and this is the elderly asthmatic. He is Rieux's first patient in the novel, and his last. At age fifty he decides that he has done enough in life and would from then on stay in bed, even though an upright position would be good for his asthma. It is said that a small pension has supported him until age seventy-five. This means that he is at least seventy-five years old, and has been lying in bed for twenty-five years. His lying in bed is actually called a vocation

(III). According to his wife, he showed an inclination for this vocation early in life, since nothing interested him. He did not give a hoot about his job, his friends, the cafe, music, women, walks. In his life, he had left the city only once to go to Algiers on family business.

Sickness can also be mental. Some forms of mental illness can be viewed as extreme inner plague, where the self-deception is just plain pathological. Cottard's false interpretation of reality is such that he can be considered to be

mentally ill. We encounter him for the first time Just after a failed suicide attempt, an attempt we later discover was purposefully set up to help him lessen certain legal difficulties. His stunt could have proven deadly if Grand had not been at the right place at the right time. Cottard is so messed up in his head that he even delights in the plague despite its deadly nature. He tells Rambert, "I've felt a lot better here ever since we started to have the plague among us" (132).

When Tarrou asks Cottard to join him and Rieu.x to help fight the plague. Cottard stands up with an air of offense and says. "It's not my job" (I46)(15). He soon adds. "Moreover. I'm comfortable with the plague, and I don't see why I would get mixed up in stopping it" (147)(I6). At the end of the novel. Cottard goes completely crazy and begins shooting at people from his apartment. A police officer refers to him as being a madman.

Another crazy man was encountered by Grand and Rieux some time beforehand as they walked down a street. The man was laughing with his eyes closed but without making a sound. He was also sweating profusely. But this man is not given any more attention in the novel.

The man who likes to spit on cats is perhaps mentally ill. He would call out to them and shower them with small pieces of paper from his balcony to get their attention. He would then spit on the cats with "force and precision" (30).

If he hit one, he would laugh.

*

Infirmity is a common theme in Camus's other works of fiction. I would first like to start with an "essay" from The Two Sides of the Coin, even though it is considered to be nonfiction. The essays that comprise this collection, or at least some of them, do seem to be short stories, especially considering that they 47

sometimes reveal information that only an omniscient writer—a fiction writer-

would know.

The first "essay" in the collection has three separate parts. I would like to

examine only the first one. which is about an elderly woman who is paralyzed on

the right side. The narrator writes that she "was in her corner, like a dog. It

was better to finish her off because she preferred to die than to be under the care

of someone" (PE. 15). She is indeed miserable being thus confined. It is

reported that when everyone leaves to go watch a movie, she is left behind. She

then cries.

In The Happy Death. Zagreus is also quite confined because he has

mutilated legs. Camus thought of having him paralyzed on one side (IC. 94). but

this characteristic does not appear in the published version of the novel. Zagreus

purposefully drinks little so that he will need to urinate only once per day—he

wants to minimize his reliance on the person who functions as his aid. Although

Zagreus tells Mersault that he would do nothing to shorten his e.xistence (70).

Zagreus has nevertheless been contemplating suicide, which is a sign of mental

illness, and in particular, depression. He has a revolver and an undated suicide

letter. On days that seem too unbearable to live, Zagreus puts the letter and

revolver in front of him. He contemplates dating the letter and then handles the

revolver. The fact that he can so easily kill himself gives him the necessary sensation of liberty to go on living.

In the novel, there is a fisherman with one arm. Since he can walk about and is in essence quite independent, he does not seek to end his life. He wants to

live it. At a certain restaurant, he even plays billiards with Mersault.

Mersault himself is not in terrific shape, at least near the end of the novel.

He thinks he has tuberculosis. His smoking does not help. He gets seriously ill. 48

There comes a time when he cannot breathe while lying down. He has to sleep

sitting at the night table. Rene, son of the Celeste in The Happy Death, also has

tuberculosis. Mersauit and Emmanuel also discuss a certain Jean Perez, who had

tuberculosis in one lung. At the time of the discussion, he was already dead.

Mersault's mother does not fare too well either. She has a "terrible

disease" that sounds like kidney failure: swellings of the face, swollen legs, half

blind. She is diabetic, which probably causes the kidney failure. She has

suffered for ten years. The narrator calls her a martyr. He also says that all the

people around her have become accustomed to her illness. She dies at fifty-six.

In The Stranger, the main victim of infirmity is Salamano's dog. who is suffering from a skin ailment. The dog has lost nearly all of its fur. He is said

to resemble his owner. Salamano. Why did Camus focus so much on a dog? It

could be because he loved animals. He did have a bitch, whom he named

Cigarette. He also had two cats: Cali and Gula. t In Caligula, we see respiratory problems again: Mereia has asthma. We

also see mental illness again: Caligula, who is out of his mind. He wants the

moon and claims to have had it in the past. He had se.x with his sister. He appears as a dancer and dances, which is not something an emperor in his right

mind would normally do. He also likes to torture people.

In State of Siege, the plague makes an appearance, but it is an unnatural plague, a plague caused by the plague man rather than by a microscopic creature.

It is a question of an artificial or supernatural disease.

In The Artist'.s Life, part 2, section E, we learn that the child gets sick and is taken away by nurses. The painter's wife eventually staggers and falls.

She becomes delirious. During all this, the painter paints. A friend is at her side, but not the painter, her very husband, who is no longer in his right mind. 49

In section G of the same part, a doctor joins her at her side but can do nothing.

She is in agony. She dies (PT, 2060).

In "The Silent Ones," which is in Exile and the Kingdom, we are

introduced to Yvars, who has an infirm leg, but this does not stop him from

pedaling his bicycle to work, even though he can use only his good leg. In the

story, we also learn about a girl who gets sick, but not much is said about her.

In The Fall, there is yet another character with respiratory problems:

Clamence.

In The First Man. Jacques perhaps has or will have tuberculosis. In a

note for this unfinished novel, Camus writes, "He spits blood. Life would

therefore be that: hospital, death, solitude, this absurdity" (The First Man. 315)

(17). Camus does not specify who the "He" is, but it is probably Jacques. There

is another note appearing earlier that suggests that Jacques has cancer, but it is

not clear whether or not the note is actually about Jacques or perhaps about one

of his uncles or some other character.

*

The noticeable frequency of respiratory ailments in Camus's fiction is

without a doubt associated with Camus's own respiratory problems. In 1930, still

a teen-ager. Camus started suffering from tuberculosis. Throughout his life, his

lungs provided him with troubles, even though the tuberculosis eventually left

him. Jacqueline Bernard tells us that Camus was in particularly bad shape in early 1942. She writes, "Every two weeks he was obliged to go and have air

insufflated into the pleura, and the operation was always something of an ordeal

for him" (169). "Be quiet, lung!" Camus exclaims in his notebooks near the end of that year (2C, 54). And in a letter written near the end of his life to an

unnamed woman, he reveals: "A former consumptive, I indeed suffer from a 50 pulmonary sclerosis that has rendered me claustrophobic. Those who are with me will confirm for you my horror for pits, caves and all closed places" (SC. 240).

He then talks about the sadness he e.xperiences in the deep Alpine valleys and how he is teased by speleologists. But despite all this. Camus still liked to puff away at cigarettes and cigars. In fact, many of the photographs we have of him show him with a cigarette sometimes in his hand, more often gripped by his lips.

Like Mersault, Camus would smoke despite his respiratory problems. He apparently knew that cigarettes are unhealthy because he would not smoke in his children's rooms.

Camus's notebooks have the two following interesting stories involving tuberculosis: The first one seems to be a short story project that he never got around to writing. It is about two women or girls who are friends. One of them has terminal tuberculosis; the other, nerve problems. They look forward to at least dying together, but then the one with the nerve problems starts getting a lot better. The one with tuberculosis realizes that she will die alone. This fills her with a "terrible hatred" (IC. 17-18).

The second story involving tuberculosis might also be a short story project that Camus never got around to writing. It is about a man who has tuberculosis.

He is in a hospital. The doctor tells him that he has five days to live. The patient cuts his throat with a razor. A nurse tells a journalist not to report it in the newspaper because the patient has suffered enough (IC. 131).

The above stories touch not only on physical suffering but also on mental suffering. We know from Camus's travel journal that he began to suffer mood swings during his trip to North America. During the course of his stay in South

America, he admits to e.xperiencing a psychological crisis. During the last years of his life, judging from his notebooks, he was suffering from what seems to be 51

Seasonal Mood Disorder. He might have suffered from it all of his life. He

often writes about light, which is something that people suffering from this

disorder tend to notice. Psychologists explain to us that a portion of the optic

nerve goes to that part of brain that regulates physical and mental alertness, but

to receive the correct stimulation, there needs to be a certain amount of fult-

spectrum light per day. Artificial light, which tends to be of limited spectrum, is

not adequate. Seasonal Mood Disorder is so called because the depression

associated w^ith it tends to occur during the winter months. It is seasonal.

During winter months in the Northern hemisphere, there is less natural daylight,

and for some people, not enough daylight to stimulate physical and mental

alertness to a sufficient level. The depression can be brought about anytime if

there is not enough full-spectrum light or natural daylight. For people with this

disorder, natural daylight is almost like an addictive drug. It causes the sensation

of happiness, which Camus often associates with his e.xperiencing of natural

daylight (see sections 4.3 and 4.3).

.A.lthough his fascination with light does not become obvious until near the

end of his life, it is apparent much sooner if we make an effort to look for it. As

early as The Plague, we see light qualified in ways that most writers would not

qualify. Camus writes about "a certain light" (73). "a younger light" (95). about

how the "sky begins to lose its light as the result of the excess heat" (114). about

a "soft and fresh light" (219). a "sparkling and icy light" (220). "the gray light"

(250). Camus points out that there is even a light of the plague (250).

Qualifying light in such ways is seen in his other fiction, although it is less

pronounced in his earliest works. By the time we get to his The Artist's Life, in

1953. light already is exceptionally important: we read in the description of the scene, "Above all. light" (PT, 2055). And in Camus's last work of fiction. The 52

First Man, when Jacques and his friends go to the sea to bathe, "the glory of the

light filled these young bodies with a joy that made them shout without stopping"

(54).

People suffering from a mood disorder sometimes wonder about their sanity. Based on his notebooks. Camus does not seem to do this, although he does reflect upon how the world seems to be insane. This perhaps e.xplains the high incidence of mental illness in his works.

Camus had ideas for other works of fiction dealing with infirmity. He contemplated writing a novel about a woman who could not keep her mind off of death and sickness (3C. 22). Another project he had in mind was to be about a sick mother (3C, 66).

Camus's own mother was a victim of infirmity. When she heard of her husband's death, the shock caused her to develop speech difficulties. She was also hard of hearing. Later in life, she ended up on the operating table: "She suffers silently. She obevs" (3C. 262—emphasis is by Camus). His daughter also tangled with sickness: "Catherine's sickness. I suspend my departure for the

South of France. Tense heart" (3C. 261). Regarding an earlier illness episode.

Camus tells us that she was afraid of dying (3C. 124). 53

1.6.- Climate

In his preface to The Two Sides of the Coin. Camus writes. "One finds in

the world many injustices, but there is one that is never spoken about, which is

the injustice of the climate" (PE. 7) (18). The climate is the last aggressor that I

shall discuss.

I once presented a paper on suffering in The Plague. After the reading,

there was a question and answer session. What seemed to be a retired French professor asked me what I thought of heliocentrism in The Plague. At the time.

I thought he was talking about astronomy—Camus had some interest in astronomy. It was not until quite some time later that I realized that I was being asked about Camus's apparent obsession with the sun.

As I see matters. Camus's heliocentrism is limited almost e.xclusively to

The Stranger. In this novel, the sun plays a crucial role. If Camus overdoes it with the constant weather reports, it is because he must bring attention to the sun.

The reader has to notice it and come to realize how it can affect a person. There had to be a reason for the four e.xtra shots, and the first one.

In The Plague, it is the heat that takes the climatic center stage. From the

Sunday of Paneloux's first sermon, the people start to change. Rieux observes that the weather also started to change, but then he wonders whether the change in the people was the result of a change of heart or a change in heat—it was getting hotter. In The Stranger, it is clear that the heat—or the sun—was able to change Meursault's disposition. In The Plague, there is room for ambiguity regarding the effects of the heat on people's tendencies. At the end of June,

"uninterrupted waves of heat and light inundated the city throughout the day"

(106). Rieux observes: "The plague's sun faded all colors and made every Joy 54

flee" (108). And when fall arrives, there is still "the murderous heat" (188) to be

found.

*

Climatic harshness is an element in Camus's other fiction, but it is of

secondary importance outside of The Stranger. Camus's numerous references to

the heat and sun have a lot to do with the settings for the stories he tells—not

with their plots, e.xcept for The Stranger. His favorite setting is the desert, and

deserts do tend to be hot and sunny. But admittedly, he does occasionally make

interesting remarks regarding how extreme weather conditions affect people.

In his notebooks. Camus writes regarding The Happy Death: "A taste for

death and for the sun. Love of life" (IC, 25)(19). Here we see death and the sun

associated—and life. In a subsequent note. Camus writes succinctly: "Sun and death" {1C.36). once again associating the two elements. Although there is quite a bit of sun and death in The Happy Death. I find that these elements tend to be separate from one another, not really associated at all. But then again. Camus's

notes do not necessarily imply that there is to be an association between the two elements. He may be merely staling that death and the sun are to make appearances in the novel. The association, however, is clearly seen in The

Stranger. Valentini Brady-Papadopoulou writes that "the blazing heat of the sun

which beats fiercely down upon Meursault is associated with death through his mother's funeral..." (75). This same association can be seen in the murder scene.

In "The Renegade " the sun is said to be "irresistible" (46), "cruel" (59).

"unrelenting" (59), and is often mentioned without being attached to an adjective.

But the sun as a physical object or source of heat does not seem to be anything more than a major nuisance. The short story would not be much different if the sun were kept out of the picture. But strangely enough, the sun is associated with Catholicism. The renegade writes, "He [his mentor, a priestl spoke to me about a future and about the sun. Catholicism is the sun. he would say" (38). But the sun in question is a metaphorical one. not one producing heat. The renegade reports that when he arrived at the seminary, everyone looked at him as if he were the sun of Austerlitz because he had come from a Protestant country.

Austerlitz is the town in Czechoslovakia where Napoleon won a victory over the combined Austrian and Russian armies, in 1805. The renegade's being the sun of

Austerlitz is once again a metaphorical use of the sun.

In "The Rock That Grows." the climate is also an aggressor, but this time it is not the desert heat and sun which are the agents, but the rain. D'Arrast is in

Iguape to built a dam to prevent floods. David Walker points out numerous references associated with water (entire article, but especially pages 79-81). In the short story. Camus is as apparently obsessed with aspects related to rain as he is with the heat and sun in The Stranger, but contrary to the situation in The

Stranger, the rain is not an integral part of the plot in "The Rock That Grows."

In The First Man, we come back to the heat and sun. Camus writes that

"men are frightful, especially under the ferocious sun" (177). He illustrates this by telling us about how a certain pregnant woman ended up with her belly cut open and her breasts cut off. We are also told about how certain Berbers ended up castrated. Criminologists do tell us that crime goes up when the weather starts getting hot.

*

In December of 1937, Camus started working at the Institute of

Meteorology at Algiers. Because of this, he may have been more aware of climatic conditions than most people. The descriptions of nature found in his fiction generally allude to temperature, either directly or indirectly. He talks about rain, humidity, snow. He mentions where in the sky the sun is. He notes

the presence of clouds, fog. He points out the quality of the air. He is a weather

man even in his writing.

In his own life, the weather did prove to be annoying on occasion.

Regarding his second trip to Greece, he writes: "Each day the monstrous sun... not veiled by the sea mist or clouds, but clear and distinct, hurling forth all of its fires, ferocious..." (3C. 227). The heat also proved to be hazardous to others.

In a note on Venice, we read: "The whole city was drunk with heat. This morning, one could read in II Gazzettino that Venetians gone mad because of the heat had been taken to the hospital for the insane" (3C, 269). This event makes

Meursault's murder of the Arab more understandable, a murder due in part to the effects of the sun and heat. 0 /

Chapter 2: Aggression (Scourge as Action)

In this chapter I shall examine what connects the aggressor to the victim;

aggression. As I explained in the Preface, a scourge can be an agent or action.

As an action, a scourge is more precisely an aggression. It is what the aggressor

gives rise to. Exile, for example, is an aggression, since it is caused by aggressors, such as the plague, as we shall shortly see. But admittedly, an aggression might also be an aggressor if it in turn causes an additional aggression, such as when exile results in solitude.

2.1.- Exile

Rieux reveals that "the first thing the plague brought to our fellow citizens was exile" (71)(20). To avoid the spread of the plague, the city is shut up. At first, no one is permitted to enter or leave. Later, however, people are permitted to enter, but such individuals have to remain in the city. Communications systems eventually become jammed. Letters are not permitted to be sent for fear of spreading the plague via that means. To a large extent, Oran becomes isolated from the rest of the world. It enters into a self-imposed exile.

Fear and being separated from loved ones are "the main suffering of this long period of exile" (67). During a period of distress, it is comforting to be in the company of close friends and relatives, but this type of comforting is scarce for many of the inhabitants of Oran. There are also people who are separated from their respective countries. This is the case for Rambert, who came down from Paris to do a report. Among the exiled, those away from their respective 58

countries "were the most exiled" (73).

In The Plague, we learn that exile can be metaphysical. Tarrou says.

"From the moment I renounced killing. I condemned myself to a decided exile"

(228-29). The context of this statement is his long monologue on the unacceptability of capital punishment. He is pointing out that he is no longer on the side of the aggressors—those who support capital punishment, i.e., death—but on the side of victims, who are condemned to live in the fear of death, which causes a mental uneasiness, a sense of imprisonment, a mental exile.

»

Exile is a theme in some of Camus's other works of fiction. In "Death in the Soul" (The Two Sides of the Coin), we have an account inspired by Camus's trip to Prague. The narrator arrives in Prague with little money. He accidentally rents an expensive room. He finds a shabby restaurant and eats there to his detriment. The food makes him sick, and despite this, he returns to the restaurant to eat. presumably because he cannot afford to eat elsewhere. He has to remain in Prague for six days. He experiences solitude because he does not speak the language. This short exile is such that he gets to the point where he would have cried like a baby if someone had opened her/his arms to him. His reaction to his short exile—only six days—is extreme, especially considering that it is more of a vacation than an exile. He is free to walk about and take in the sights. Prague was no small place in the 1930s. He also has the anticipation that he is going to meet friends. His strong reaction to his stay in Prague is understandable if we consider that he is also experiencing a mental exile. He alludes to this after having left Prague. He says. "I arrived in Vienna, and departed after a week, and I was still a prisoner of myself" (PE, 36). His being a prisoner of himself is the mental exile, an exile different from the physical one 59

because he is no longer in Prague. His stay in this city was an exile upon an

exile.

In The Stranger. Meursault experiences a sort of exile before the exile of

imprisonment. Moya Longstaffe puts it this way: "One hot summer's day a

young man...kills a nameless Arab by pumping into his recumbent body a total of

five bullets. At that instant he becomes an e.xile from the kingdom of

happiness " (54).

Exile appears in a fleeting manner in Caligula, where Caligula disappears

for a while in self-imposed e.xile. It apparently made him more crazy than he

already was, or at least, it made him less respectful of the patricians, whom he

begins to utterly humiliate upon his return.

The Exiled One was a contemplated title for what would become The

Misunderstanding. Like Caligula. Jan changes after his exile. The change in

Jan. however, seems to be primarily financial in nature; he becomes rich. But

despite this, his e.xile has negative qualities to it. He tells his wife that "one cannot be happy in e.xile or forgotten. One cannot always remain a stranger. I

want to rediscover my country, [and] bring happiness to those I love" (173).

The mother and sister are also in a sort of exile. The sister refers to their inn as being "a bitter house where we are exiled forever" (242).

Exile, both physical and mental, is, of course, an important theme in the short stories comprising Exile and the Kingdom. Camus says that exile is treated in six different ways, one way in each story (PT, 2039). He also explains that it is through exile that we arrive at the kingdom, which he explains as being "a certain free and bare life that we have to find in order to be finally reborn" (PT.

2039). He points out that to find this kingdom, we must refuse servitude and possession. All of this sounds very much like the Christian concept of being born 60 again.

Janine. in "The Adulterous Woman." the first story in Exile and the

Kingdom, experiences both a mental and a physical e.xile. Her mental exile is emotional in nature. She is married to a man who does not love her and whom she is not overly fond of. She stays with him because he needs her. She has a need to be needed. And she is in a son of physical exile because her husband is a traveling salesman, and where he goes, she has to follow, whether she likes it or not. She is unhappy. But one night she rebels and commits adultery, not literally against her husband, but against her life. She sneaks out of bed and out of the bedroom. Camus describes the scene as if she were leaving to meet a lover. The reader is led to believe that this is her intention. She goes out into the night and finds the "kingdom." She forgets "the long anguish of living and of dying" (34). For years she has been fleeing fear, and in particular, the fear of growing old and dying, but not anymore. She experiences a silence within as a result of her contemplation of nature. She is reborn, thus becoming a different person. At the end of the story, after she returns to her husband, tears of joy fill her eyes.

Loraine Day argues that Janine's finding of the kingdom consists of consenting to death (entire article, but especially pages 73 and 79). This consent to death is not in the story, but it can be seen in a previous version of the text, and from commentarj' in Camus's notebooks. Consenting to death liberates her psychologically, which in turn allows her to be happy.

Martha Lynch sees matters in yet a different way. According to Lynch,

Janine does indeed change, but in a negative direction. Her tears at the end of the story are not tears of joy but tears of sorrow because she "understands that she can't create an entirely new identity that disowns her past and her heritage" (147). 61

Janine does not find the kingdom. Her transformation consists, in part, in

realizing that her life will not change. Her transformation also consists in

becoming a kind of criminal. Lynch suggests that Janine betrays both her

husband and her country as a result of her encounter with the night (she betrays

her country in the sense that she is a Frenchwoman who for a while unites

metaphysically with Algeria).

According to Jerry Curtis, Janine's transformation has something to do

with imitating the perseverance of the Bedouins she saw. By doing as these

nomads do. she can learn to be happy, so she does. By going out into the night, she becomes a nomad, if but for a short while. Curtis writes. "Janine emerges

ultimately with a heightened awareness of the human predicament; Arabs in the

desert symbolize Man in the world" (130). Janine then comes to feel that she is

no longer an alien (131).

In "The Renegade—" we have a priest, the renegade, who is held captive

by savages. This captivity, this e.xile, causes the priest to change his attitude toward Christianity. The seeds for his attitude change were already present in the

priest before the capture. In the beginning of the story, we see a certain aloofness in regard to his Christian beliefs. He says. "I believed, bla. bla "

(39)(21). Before his captivity, he was in a mental e.xile. But it is the physical e.\ile that does the final job of helping the priest find the Camusian kingdom, although in a distorted sense. This results in his rejecting the realm of God. The renegade says that he was a slave (54). but is no longer one. even though he is the prisoner of the chief savage. The renegade even prays to the chief savage.

The priest says that he is in the kingdom of the chief savage, a kingdom that the priest qualifies as being "visible" (54). which is contrary to what the kingdom of

God is. The priest becomes so hostile toward God that the mere mention of the 62

Lord repulses him. The priest says that he has a new faith, a faith in which hatred reigns. However, finding this distorted Camusian kingdom does not seem to make the renegade happy. His psychological change can hardly be called an improvement, as is the case with Janine. Camus is perhaps telling us that exile is not necessarily good. In The Plague we see that e.xile brings out the best in some people (Rieux, Tarrou. Rambert, Grand), but it also brings out the worst in others

(Cottard). In the stories of Exile and the Kingdom, the situation is similar.

Some characters experience an improvement; others end up worse off. But in the third story of the collection, in "The Silent Ones." e.xile does not seem to result in any change whatsoever. The Camusian kingdom is not found. The story is about several barrel makers who go on a strike that amounts to nothing. The boss, who is a good fellow, simply cannot pay his employees what they are asking for. The workers return to work and give their boss the silent treatment, which I assume is the exile, an exile imposed upon the boss. But the exile affects the workers when the boss's daughter falls seriously ill. It is felt that something should be said to the boss, but they must remain silent.

Laura Durand, on the other hand, disagrees with my interpretation of exile in this story. She feels that the workers are exiling themselves rather than their boss via their silent treatment. And also contrary to my interpretation, she believes that the Camusian kingdom is indeed found; the scene where Yvars and the Arab have lunch—Yvars notices that the Arab has only a few figs, and as a result, Yvars insists on sharing his sandwich with his companion; this makes

Yvars feel good. However. I do not believe that this is the finding of the kingdom because it hardly has anything to do with the supposed exile. The workers regularly have lunch together.

Sandy Petrey views the exile in "The Silent Ones" as a change in species. 63 so to speak: Animals do not speak, so when the workers become silent, they become like animals, or at least "subhuman" (161). Petrey writes that "frequent references to violation of the conventions governing how humans speak to one another augment the impression that the end of communication marks the end of a shared condition as a single species (161-62).

Daru. in "The Guest" ("L'Hote"), does not change in the story presumably because there is no heartfelt exile involved. Yes. he is in a school house in the middle of nowhere, but he likes it. He is said to be happy. He even feels like a lord. The narrator says. "Anywhere else he felt exiled" (84). With no heartfelt exile, there is no finding of the Camusian kingdom, which in turn means no rebirth. Laurence Perrine suggests that Daru is in the kingdom to begin with and that the exile comes at the end of the story, when the Arab is no longer around.

As a result. Daru loses the kingdom because of the solitude he experiences (1,

291). The kingdom precedes exile, rather than the other way around.

In "Jonas or the Artist at Work," we have an artist who ends up exiled in his own home because of his work burden. He must paint and sell his paintings in order to pay his bills. The stress drives him to drinking, adultery and mental illness, but all of this helps him find the Camusian kingdom, and he is thus reborn. He becomes a different man. He will no longer work as before. He believes that he is happy. But despite his rebirth, he is still a little unbalanced.

In "The Rock That Grows," the last story in E.xile and the Kingdom.

D'Arrast. a French engineer, is in Brazil to work on a project for preventing floods. He is often surrounded by religious fanatics who practice a mixture of

Catholicism and what seems to be voodoo. D'Arrast feels exiled. We read.

"Here, exile or solitude, in the middle of these languishing and trembling lunatics, who danced to die" (176). He decides to participate in the ceremonies 64

in a substantial and tiresome way. This causes him to experience an "obscure

joy" that "he could not name" (187). He finds the Camusian kingdom. He is

reborn: he becomes one of the "lunatics."

The Fall, which Camus originally intended to form part of Exile and the

Kingdom, also involves exile. Clamence. a Parisian lawyer, is exiled in

Amsterdam. He finds the kingdom, the one consisting of "a certain free and bare

life": He no longer practices law. but seemingly spends the bulk of his life

hanging around a bar. Yet this is not good. Bartfeld points out that Clamence

does not want liberty (2.. 99). Clamence says that liberty is too hard to bear.

This may have led him to become a penitent j'udge. a confessor of his past sins, a

"professional talker." as Alex Argyros puts it (13). But this rebirth does not lead

to happiness. He remains haunted by his failure to save a woman who j'umped off a bridge. This is causing him a mental exile. Brearley remarks that

Clamence goes to Amsterdam because he is "conscious of his guilt and cowardice" (121). His rebirth is therefore more connected with his mental exile than with his physical one. The former leads to the latter.

*

Camus's notebooks provide us with additional insight regarding exile.

From his notebooks, we know that God Does Not Answer was a contemplated title for what eventually became The Misunderstanding (2C, 45). Is Camus revealing that God's silence puts us into a sort of exile? In The

Misunderstanding, there is an old man, who scholars have suggested represents

God. At the end of the play, Jan's wife asks the old man for help, but he responds with a resounding "No!" Just prior to this scene, the sister spends quite some time criticizing God for being deaf to the cries of people. God puts people into exile by His silence. 65

Camus might have considered existence to be an exile. James Aho seems

to believe this. He writes that for Camus, "human existence in and of itself is

characterized by a meaningless exile in a seemingly alien cosmos. Man is thrown

for no reason onto the earth, and the heavens are silent as he seeks to discern and adjust to his destiny with no accomplice but himself" (53).

Camus's notebooks reveal plans for incorporating e.xile into The First Man, a theme not present in the published version of this unfinished book. Camus writes. "The mother, having to flee Algeria, lives out the rest of her life in

Provence on the land purchased for her by her son. She suffers exile" (3C. 182).

We therefore have exile as a theme from Camus's first works to his last.

Exile is a common theme in Camus's works perhaps because he himself experienced exile. We know he traveled quite a bit. around Europe, parts of

North Africa, and in North and South America. While at Turin, referring to

Italians, he says. "People I have always loved and who make me feel my exile in the perpetual ill humor of the French" (3C. 132). But exile is not always unpleasant: In his travel journal he writes. "Exile has its sweet moments" (V99).

He is referring to a time when he was having dinner alone. The moment is sweet because he had gotten sick and tired of giving conferences in South .America. It is good to be alone after having been with numerous persons for a significant stretch of time. 66

2.2.- Imprisonment

According to his notebooks, Camus contemplated The Prisoners as a title for what eventually became The Plague (2C, 41). Within the novel, the inhabitants of the quarantined Oran are referred to as being prisoners.

Imprisonment is a form of aggression similar to e.xile. e.xcept that there is usually greater confinement in imprisonment than in e.xile. Both are caused by an outside agent. In The Plague, it is the plague that brings about imprisonment. Guards are posted around Oran to keep people from leaving, and there are also severe penalties for attempts at escaping. People are not even permitted—at least officially—to go to the nearby beach. But within the city, there are many freedoms not available in the typical prison. Healthy people are free to do just about anything a citizen in any other city can do. except leave. Healthy people in

Oran may dress as they please, smoke, consume alcohol, go to the theater, etc..

Oran is a prison primarily for those who want to leave. For some characters, like the elderly asthmatic, staying in Oran is no problem. He does not want to leave.

And for Cottard. the imprisonment brought about by the plague is a blessing to him. It is making him e.xtra money.

But for those inhabitants of Oran who are not healthy or who are suspected of being carriers of the plague, a prison within a prison awaits them. Those who are actually sick end up in the hospital, which in a way is a prison, since the ill are confined there until they either get well or die. But those who might have the plague must stay in isolation camps. There is one camp that is described to quite some extent, and it is described almost as if it were a Nazi concentration camp.

It is located within the stadium. The ground is covered with several hundred tents for the potentially infected. People are crowded together in the 67

tents. These folk occupy themselves listening "to flies or scratching themselves,

bawling out their anger or their fear." (217). The people are also fed outdoors, at

the tents. The men "stretched out their arms" to have their bowls filled as the food carts passed by. It is as if the men, with their stretched out arms, are

begging for the nourishment. There is also little concern for food variety. Rieu.x notices the "enormous voices of the loudspeakers" (220) and "the odor of men"

(220). elements that add to the image of the concentration camp.

»

Outside of The Plague, imprisonment is an aggression primarily found in

The Stranger. J. McCann writes, "Meursault is imprisoned, even before he kills the Arab, in a world of mechanical repetition, a nihilistic treadmill" (58). But I will concentrate rather on imprisonment in the conventional sense of imprisonment in a prison.

Meursault is in prison for having killed an Arab. Just about the only significant advantage he has over the "prisoners" of The Plague is that he can receive visits from outside the prison. But the disadvantages of his situation are most uncomfortable: He wants women for sexual purposes, but this is denied him. He is also denied cigarettes. This is especially hard on him because he is a smoker. To compensate for the lack of cigarettes, he breaks off pieces of wood from the board of his bed and sucks on them. Because of this, he has to put up with feelings of nausea all day long, thus his imprisonment makes him sick, although by his own fault. He also desires to go to the beach, but this is denied him. If he were an Oran-style prisoner, he would have his cigarettes and the availability of sex partners.

Does Meursault find the Camusian kingdom as a result of his imprisonment? He does talk of experiencing a calmness after his outburst against the chaplain, but this perhaps has more to do with being rid of the irritating

chaplain than in finding the sense of freedom characteristic of the Camusian

kingdom—or perhaps it is just an emotional release. Also. Meursault does not seem to experience the corresponding rebirth, or if he does, it is not of the sort experienced by Janine or D'Arrast. Prior to the outburst. Meursault does undergo a psychological change. Dennis Fletcher writes, "The ultimate effect of the

murder is to project Meursault from a state of comparative mental torpor into a situation which generates in him an awareness of personal values..." (531). He indeed experiences an increase in awareness, but I feel that it is trivial, an insignificant change, not a rebirth, and I do not see the "personal values." at least not in the traditional sense: In order to kill time. Meursault relives memories over and over again; with each repetition, he remembers increasingly more details. He notices things that he had not noticed before, even though he is viewing details only in his mind. He keeps track of the details. He realizes that

"a man who lives but one day can without trouble live one hundred years in a prison. He would have enough memories to keep himself from getting bored"

(123). Meursault's increase in awareness is also sensory in nature: he says that his ear had never before perceived so many sounds. His imprisonment also helps him realize that an execution is "the only thing truly interesting to a man" (168). but soon afterward he exclaims, "What do I care about the death of others,..."

(183). Overall, he remains the same man.

Imprisonment is an aggression that also appears in The Just Assassins.

Stepan gets quite philosophical when he says, "Liberty is a prison for as long as even a single man is enslaved on this earth" (PT, 308) (22). In other words, we are all imprisoned because odds are that there is at least one person on earth deprived of freedom. It would seem that the goal of all people should be to seek out the freedom of all people. But Voinov. a character who quits the terrorism

profession, sees imprisonment differently. He sees advantages in it. such as that

of having others making the decisions. He e.vclaims. "Yes. it's that, no more decision making!" (PT. 347). He says that if he were arrested, he would make no attempt at escape.

Kaliayev ends up in prison for blowing up the Grand Duke. Foka is in the same prison for having killed three men. Kaliayev is to be hanged for having killed one man; on the other hand. Foka is not facing execution at all. even though he killed more men than did Kaliayev. In The Just Assassins, we see that all men are not equal, whether dead or not. The death of the Grand Duke is

more important than the deaths of the three people killed by Foka. Also. Foka has a year taken off his sentence for each man he hangs in his role as prison executioner—he has already hanged two men. Presumably Foka will eventually get out of prison alive. Kaliayev is given the chance to live if he gives the names of the other terrorists, but he refuses to do so. Odds are that they in turn would be executed. Kaliayev has the choice of staying in prison alive at the cost of the death of his comrades, or leaving prison dead. Kaliayev makes the admirable choice, unlike Foka, who continues to kill to get himself out of or reduce his punishment. It is conceivable that those whom Foka executes are less deserving of death than he is. Foka killed three people because he was thirsty.

The prison e.xperience does not seem to change Kaliayev at all: however, he did not spend much time in prison to begin with. And contrary to Meursault. who has the hope of getting out. Kaliayev accepts his fate. He knows he is going to die. He has no future but in death; therefore, why change?

I shall briefly mention that there is also a metaphysical prison in The Just

Assassins. Mary Ann Witt explains this well: "The paradoxical condition in 70 which all of the members of the terrorist group find themselves is that they have become voluntary 'prisoners' because of their very desire to liberate the Russian people from their 'prison' of injustice" (7).

*

Camus had compassion for prisoners. It was in 1934 or 1935 that Camus witnessed an Arab prisoner being led about with a rope around his neck. Camus thought that this was inhuman. This spectacle, or something similar, made its way into "The Guest." In this short story, we see Daru showing compassion for his humiliated Arab guest, a prisoner, eventually helping him escape.

In Camus's notebooks we read: "Open the prisons or prove your virtue"

(2C. 328). This oddly conveys Just about the same message as "Let him who has no sin cast the first stone." Camus is pointing out that everyone has done something wrong at one time or another; at a presuppositional level, he is also asking that unnecessary punishment be avoided. It is such punishment that is getting out of hand. He observes: "The true problem of the moment: punishment" (2C. 280) (23).

People often are imprisoned for the wrong reasons. In an article for

L'Express. Camus discusses how two labor union members ended up condemned to correctional time for refusing to shake hands with a certain prefect (E.vl37).

But crime, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. During the German occupation of France, Camus was in constant danger of being arrested by the

Gestapo. Arrest meant not only imprisonment but also torture and usually death.

In the eyes of the Germans. Camus was a terrorist, a criminal, a propagator of dangerous ideas. He. of course, thought otherwise.

Camus had several literary projects involving imprisonment, projects that never came to be. One would have been The Corrected Creation, a novel about 71

Jews during the occupation. His notebooks contain numerous passages for this

novel. Contrary to what one would expect, the passages are not overtly

gruesome. The torture is alluded to rather than described. In fact, most of the

passages refer to actions outside of the concentration camps. In one early

passage, women deported to Switzerland start laughing upon seeing a funeral.

They say. "That's the way they treat dead folk here[?]" (2C. 132). Another

passage deals with the concierge of the Gestapo. She does housework among the

tortured. It does not seem to bother her. She says. "I never concern myself with

what my tenants do" (2C. 133). Another passage deals with two Jews, one of

whom goes crazy and wants to denounce the other. They are eventually found

hanged {2C. 163), Yet another passage is on a Jew who refuses to believe that

the Gestapo even exists because it is never seen. He will not believe in it until

he receives a kick in the belly (2C. 164). Similarly. Voinov. in The Just

Assassins, does not believe in the Russian secret police, and like the Jew. will

not believe in its existence unless he gets kicked in the belly (PT. 346).

The concentration camps, however, are definitely real. A lack of solitude

is one of their significant characteristics. In one passage for The Corrected

Creation, women are crowded together so that they must sleep somewhat piled up

one atop another. Going to the outhouse is not possible without stepping on others. It is also a hundred meters away. The women prefer to urinate where

they are (2C, 133).

Another passage involves a Jew with a mentality similar to that of Voinov.

The Jew does not want to take advantage of an opportunity to escape from the concentration camp. He says that it is easier to remain a prisoner and face the corresponding horrors than to escape. Why? He explains that escaping involves taking an initiative, whereas remaining a prisoner places the responsibility on the captors (2C. 163)! Is Camus offering an explanation as to why circumstances at

the concentration camps got so out of hand? Is he suggesting that the victims

were to some extent at fault? The answer may lie in the fact that many of the

notes for The Corrected Creation are found interspersed among notes for The

Plague, a novel on Camus's concept of revolt. In The Plague, most of the main

characters fight the enemy, taking health precautions against the scourge. As a

result, most of the inhabitants of Oran survive the ordeal. However, in regard to

the Jew who prefers his captors to take the initiative, death is probably at the

door. Refusing to revolt means almost certain death. Although revolt is no

guarantee for life—many in The Plague die despite their revolt—revolt does

increase the odds that there will be life after the battle. The Corrected Creation,

however, does have a rebel: a terrorist (2C, 190). We are not told anything about

him except his name. Ravenel, and that he is a terrorist. But we can assume that

he is a more respectable character than the Jew who refuses to take an initiative

to liberate himself.

In a passage that might be for The Corrected Creation, we learn about the

imprisonment of a proud intellectual who is made to stay in the spit cell of a prison camp. Unlike the Jew above with the aversion to revolt, this intellectual

makes it his goal to survive in order to be able to kill. His revolt is a mental one, since he is not in a position to physically rebel.

A later novel project Camus had involving imprisonment is on a prisoner who dies while others in the cell ignore him. There are twelve people in the cell, a cell designed to hold only two prisoners. Despite the crowd, the man dies in solitude. Even his fellow prisoners fail to show concern for him. even though they too may meet the same fate. Camus's implied lesson is that we are to be mindful of those incarcerated. 73

2.3.- Physical Separation From Loved Ones

Although exile and imprisonment both generally involve a physical separation from loved ones, in this section I would like to treat this particular kind of separation as a distinct manifestation of aggression. In a way. physical separation from loved ones is a specific sort, a subset, of exile.

In The Plague, separation involves compounded suffering. Rieux explains;

"In fact, we were suffering twofold: first of our own suffering and then of the suffering that we attributed to those who were absent, [whether] son. spouse or lover" (70)(24). The suffering is such that city officials feel that it is important to do something to relieve it. They cannot allow people to leave Oran because it would result in spreading the plague to other cities. The other option is to allow people to come to Oran at their own risk, but once inside, they would have to stay until the end of the scourge. At first, many inhabitants of the city ask loved ones to come over, but they then change their minds after further thought. But there is at least one exception, at the peak of the epidemic, at which time "human feelings were stronger than the fear of a torturous death" (69). This exception involves Mrs. Castel. who had gone into a neighboring city a few days before the scourge. She and her husband were not even sure about their marriage, but the plague showed them that they could not live apart.

Among the main characters, the stress of separation is seen most intensely in Rambert. He had left Paris for Oran on a journalistic mission. He ends up stranded in the desert town due to the plague. Back in Paris, he had left behind a woman who is referred to in the novel as his wife, although he is technically not married to her. The novel says that it does not really make a difference. He loves her and misses her—that is what counts. 74

He makes several attempts to leave Oran so he can Join her. First he

resorts to legal means. He tries to get Dr. Rieu.x to write up a certificate of

health, but the request is denied: Rieux is not capable of determining whether or

not Rambert is free of the plague. Rambert knows that Rieu.x is responsible to quite some e.\tent for the shutting up of the city, and therefore believes that he can do something to undo it. if at least for one person. Rambert says to him.

"You didn't think about anyone. You didn't take into account those who were separated" (84). Rieux acknowledges that "he had not wanted" to take them into account (84). This acknowledgment implies thai he was indeed aware of the separated ones.

Rambert subsequently goes to the various city officials to get permission to leave Oran. but they do nothing. It is then that he considers illegal means.

He sees Cottard. who has contacts within the black market. It turns out that it will cost Rambert ten thousands francs to leave Oran. He agrees to pay it.

There are seemingly endless delays in arranging his evasion. This increases his separation stress. On a given night, he gets drunk to the point that he believes he has the plague. He runs toward the high section of the city and calls out to his loved one in Paris.

Rambert eventually decides not to leave because of the shame involved.

Rieux tells him that it is stupid, that there is no shame in preferring happiness.

Rambert agrees but adds that there could be shame in being happy all alone. He explains that after seeing what he has seen in the city, he is now from it. from

Oran. It would seem that he is now experiencing less overall separation stress because he no longer regards himself as a foreigner. He is thus less separated.

The decrease in overall separation stress that he experiences allows him to better cope with the stress associated with being apart from his lady—thus his decision I D

to remain in the city. At the end of the plague, when Rambert and his lady are reunited, tears flow from his eyes, but he does not know if they are tears of Joy or tears of long-repressed woe. This emotional outburst shows that his separation stress did not decrease substantially as a result of having accepted to being part of

Oran.

Grand is also separated from a loved one. Jeanne, his wife, but the separation is not caused by the plague but by marital discord. Yet the presence of the plague accentuates the separation, as in the case with the Castels. Grand begins to miss his wife more than ever. He becomes prone to sadness attacks in which he talks about Jeanne to Rieu.x. At such moments. Grand wonders where she is or whether or not she is thinking of him. An exceptional sadness attack is experienced on Christmas Day: He is walking about the streets, with a fever. tears flowing from his eyes: Rieux eventually finds him in front of a store window—it was at such a place that Jeanne once told Grand that she was happy.

Rieux knows that Grand is re-experiencing "the fresh voice of Jeanne" (236).

Grand's pain at being separated from Jeanne is also revealed in his manuscript. At the end of the very last page, he writes: "My well-beloved

Jeanne, today is Christmas..." (237). .Although this is a simple statement, it conveys a heavy emotional burden. Grand desires the company of Jeanne, and this desire is intensified by the fact that it is Christmas. Although Christmas is supposed to be a time for Joy. he has no Joy. By stating that "today is

Christmas...." Grand is asking Jeanne for what is expected on Christmas. He is asking for Joy: he is asking for her. But his use of points of suspension and his subsequent behavior in the street (described above) suggests that despair set in. that he realized that he would not experience Joy that particular Christmas.

The third main character to be separated from a loved one is Rieux. He is separated from his wife. At first, the separation is caused by her going off to a health facility—not by the plague. But the piague eventually becomes a factor in prolonging the separation, a separation which Rieux figures will be permanent, since he expects her to die. This explains his relatively calm reaction to the news of her death; he suspected that it would happen. However, he does say that her death was "difficult" for him (264). He also alludes to a certain suffering, a suffering that had gone on for two months and two days—apparently the time period since the previous telegram reporting bad news. His wife's death is said to be a continuation of this two-month/two-day suffering. The fact that Rieux is aware of the precise duration of his malaise reveals that it must have been quite bad.

Rieux might have been able to take the news of his wife's death in a relatively calm fashion for yet another reason. Referring to the time period of

August, deep into the plague. Rieux says that separation became the most general and deepest kind of suffering, but he also says that this kind of suffering was losing its "patheticness" (166). Rieu.x explains that it was not because people were getting accustomed to the conditions, but rather because memories were deteriorating. He explains: "Not that they [people] had forgotten that face. but...it had lost its flesh. They could no longer see it within themselves" (166).

If Rieux underwent this same experience, it would explain part of his reaction to being separated from his wife. .Absence does not necessarily make the heart grow fonder. Deteriorating memories reduce separation stress. As Rieux points out. this was generally the case for the inhabitants of Oran. Remembered faces lost their flesh: however, we do find an exception with the character of Grand, who retained vivid memories of his loved one. as we saw above.

Judge Othon eventually becomes separated from his wife, but there is little focus on it. When their son is struck by the plague, all of the family members are quarantined. Rieux and Rambert. who are responsible for having organized the quarantine, insist that family members be isolated from one another in order to prevent the possible spreading of the plague. Rieux explains this to Judge and

Mrs. Othon. The two react by looicing at one another in such a way that Rieux knows how unpleasant the separation will be for them. The judge realizes that the reasons for the isolation are good, but this does not seem to ease his pain.

Mrs. Othon and her daughter end up housed together because of the young age of the girl. The judge ends up quarantined in the isolation camp within the stadium, the camp with characteristics of a Nazi concentration camp. But soon after the quarantine period, the judge is reunited with his wife and daughter, but not with his son, a victim of the plague. In time, there is another separation when the judge falls prey to the scourge.

*

Physical separation from loved ones is a common theme in Camus's other works of fiction, but contrary to what we find in The Plague, the separation from loved ones is generally not of the romantic sort. In a way of speaking. The

Plague is the most loving or romantic of Camus's works.

From his earliest works we see the theme of separation. It is one of the main themes in the stories—or essays—of The Two Sides of the Coin. In the first section of "Irony," which is about the elderly woman paralyzed on her right side and who is "in her corner, like a dog" {PE. 15), we learn that there tend to be people in the house, but she is still separated from them in the sense that she is in her corner, i.e., out of the way. She does not even have dinner with those in the house because dinner foods tend to be heavy. Perhaps if those in the house truly loved the woman, a light meal would be prepared for her so that she could 78 have dinner.

At other times, like when everyone takes off to the cinema, she is hugged and wished a good night, but perhaps this is done out of habit. Whether or not she is loved is not e.vplicitly stated in the story, but she probably was loved prior to the illness that caused her paralysis. We are told that prior to the infirmity, she got around quite a bit and was quite talkative. We can assume that she was emotionally close to several individuals, presumably relatives. But disease, one of Camus's main separators, caused matters to change. Her condition separated her from her loved ones, even if this separation is relatively short in physical distance. But the emotional distance is significant. She is no longer talkative.

At times, when the physical separation is more pronounced, she reacts to it more strongly, e.g.. when everyone takes off to the cinema and she is left behind, an act that brings her to tears.

Other stories in The Two Sides of the Coin also deal with separation from loved ones, but in the sense of death. This kind of separation will be discussed in a subsequent section in this chapter.

As in the first section of "Irony." infirmity is a separator in The Happy

Death. In chapter 3 of part 1. Marthe is telling Mersault about her lovers. He knows all of them except one: Zagreus. Mersault wants to meet him. Marthe arranges it and goes with him. At the meeting. Zagreus still seems to think that he is Marthe's lover, even if at a superficial level. We read that Zagreus tried a couple of means to lessen the discomfort involved in the "meeting of two lovers of a same woman while in her presence" (63). Zagreus would not have done this if he had not felt at least some amorous attachment to Marthe. We can suspect the lack of full romantic love because he treats her like a "good [little] girl" while in Mersault's presence. We also know from Marthe's own words that in her mind 79 she is no longer amorously attached to Zagreus. She tells Mersault that of her ten or so lovers, Zagreus was her first. She met him before the accident that

mangled his legs and put him in a wheelchair. The handicap changed his relationship with her. Marthe says, "Now, he has his legs cut off. He lives completely alone. Well then, I go see him on occasion" (61). These statements imply that she continues to see him out of some sort of moral obligation or kindness. She visits him occasionally to provide him with company—not because of romantic feelings.

Once while talking to Zagreus, she uses the term mon cheri to refer to

Mersault. Despite this, Zagreus tells her that he would like to meet him.

Zagreus shows no sign of jealousy, which suggests that his relationship with

Marthe is more readily a friendship than a romantic relationship. The change from romantic relationship to friendship can be attributed to his handicap because of how it interferes with the courtship proce.ss. which requires a degree of mobility within public domains (movie theaters, restaurants), which Zagreus insists on avoiding.

Since his relatives and partners in crime do not seem to be part of his life, we can assume that his situation has caused them to draw back. When Zagreus comes to desire death, he does not arrange for a relative, friend or even Marthe— whom he has known for at least twenty years—to get his money. He arranges for

Mersault. a virtually complete stranger, to get it. This shows how separated

Zagreus feels from his supposed loved ones. He could have given some of the money away to people of his choice before enticing Mersault to kill him, but

Zagreus does not. It seems that despite some degree of fondness for Marthe, in the end, Zagreus chooses to ignore even her.

Separation is a theme in The Stranger. Before the novel begins, Meursault is separated from his mother. We can assume that there was some love, but it

was not intense. Mother lived with Meursault for quite some time, which

presumes a degree of attachment between the two. Mother was eventually sent

off to the senior citizen home primarily because Meursauit had nothing more to

say to her! And after her death, he exhibits no signs of emotional turmoil. He

does not want to see the body: he does not know her age: he does not weep. He

goes on as usual: he drinks coffee, he smokes, he goes to the cinema to watch a

comedy, he has sex. In essence, he did not care much about her. His separation

from her had no negative effect on him.

We are not told explicitly of matters from Mother's perspective as they

pertain to her son. but it seems that the move to the senior citizen home was to

her advantage. We learn that she was happy at the home and had friends there.

We can assume that this was an improvement over her living situation with her son. She was less bored at the home. She had a "fiance." In her case, being

separated from a loved one—if indeed she loved her son—was to her benefit.

Salamano experiences a separation from a loved one: his dog. For eight

years Salamano had walked his dog twice a day: at eleven and at six. His love

for his dog, however, was not unconditional, for he would beat it and insult it

quite often. But when the dog disappears, Salamano is deeply hurt. He even cries, and quite loudly because Meursault is able to hear him through the wall.

Based on this emotional response, it would seem that Salamano was more attached to his dog than Meursault to his own mother.

In his speech at the end of part one of State of Siege, the plague man orders that the men be separated from the women . This is not done to prevent

the spread of the scourge but to illustrate a point. The plague man has an aversion to those things he considers to be pathetic. This includes the "ridiculous 81

anguish of happiness, the stupid faces of those in love " (PT. 228). To replace

such things, he is bringing organization. He says that "a good organization is

better than a bad pathos" (PT, 228)(25). So he is now separating the men from

the women. He says that "it's a question now of being serious" (228). But

Judging from the rest of the play, the plague man's intention is not carried out.

Female and male characters continue to intermingle. Even the Judge, who is on

the plague man's side, continues being with his wife.

The theme of separation is touched upon to quite some degree in Camus's

notebooks. Camus makes it clear that this theme is a driving force behind the

composition of The Plague. He writes to himself, "Continue until the end the

theme of separation" (2C, 67). He also writes. "For sanitary reasons, children are

separated from their parents, and men from women, so that the separation

becomes general. Everyone is thrown back to solitude" (2C. 80—emphasis his).

Also regarding The Plague. Camus often speaks of the "separated ones" (2C. 71.

73, 76, 79, 90. 91, 93....).

In his travel journal. Camus makes the following remark: "Plague: it's a

world without women, and therefore unbreathable" (V42). Let us note that all of

the main characters and the bulk of the secondary characters are male. This lack

of balance contributes to the atmosphere of separation. The lack of female characters creates the impression that Oran is a men's prison, even though we can assume that around half of the residents of the city are female. This illusion of

Oran being a men's prison—the usual kind of prison—ties in well with Camus's original intention of having The Prisoners as the title of the novel that eventually

became The Plague.

Camus himself experienced involuntary separation from loved ones, such 82 as when he was stuck in France during the German occupation. In particular, he was not able to contact his loved ones in Algeria. But he did have an idea on how to let them know that he was all right. Jacqueline Bernard writes. "He had been approached by the Radio-Paris network to give a talk on a literary subject.

His first impulse had of course been to refuse, since it was under German control— Then he had thought things over and had realized it would be a way... to get news of himself to his wife and mother The broadcast would probably be heard by someone in Algeria and sooner or later his family would be told about it and would at least know that he was alive" (169). Camus's experience of separation was thus so painful that he was willing to go against strongly-held political views. 83

2.4.- E.xistential Separation

When there are no aggressors in life, existence is conceivably ideal or

thereabouts. Life is beautiful, carefree, enjoyable. But when an aggressor crops

up. there is a separation or further separation from the ideal. Life is no longer as

beautiful, as carefree, as enjoyable as before. A part of e.\istence is taken away,

separated. There is no longer a sense of completeness to life. Something seems

to be missing; something seems to be wrong. Since the perfect or ideal existence does not exist, existential separation is technically the norm: however, for the sake of practicality and simplicity, let us assume within this section that the ideal existence is what an intellectually superior person would be relatively satisfied

with. In the case of The Plague, the ideal existence would be the one that existed prior to the scourge. Existential separation takes place when one is separated from this supposed ideal existence.

Rieu.x seems to suggest that two main elements of existence existed prior to the coming of the plague. The main one is friendship, togetherness. The other one is revealed near the end of the novel, where Rieux discusses once again the strong desire for reunions with loved ones (270). but he also mentions a different kind of desired reunion: He mentions how some people, "like Tarrou perhaps, had desired the reunion with something that they could not define, but that seemed to them to be the only desirable possession. For lack of a better term, they sometimes called it peace" (270). Living in this peace can also be regarded as an ideal existence from which the victim is separated.

In The Plague, the separator is the plague, and it existentially separates in a variety of ways. For example, Rambert develops a "distraction," which is like a "dull anguish," which can be regarded as a separation from a prior better 84

existence. Rieux himself felt a "small giddiness" whenever he thought about the

plague (58). He acknowledges that he felt fear. He also acknowledges he had a

need for human companionship, and as a result, would go to cafes. In other

words, something is metaphysically missing from him. something which he feels can perhaps be replaced by being in a crowd.

Existential separation also has a temporal element. We learn that the

plague causes the inhabitants of Oran to become "impatient of their present, enemies of their past and deprived of their future,..." (72). The plague causes

people to become enemies of their past because they rely on memories of loved ones and live in those memories, which, in fact, is not living at all. People become like "those whom human justice or hatred have placed behind bars" (72), i.e., prisoners, who also live in memories, in the past. Rieux says regarding those in Oran, "Each one had to accept to live from day to day,..." (74). and

"they installed themselves into the present. Indeed, everything became the present to them. It must be said: the plague had taken away from everyone the power of love and even [the power] of friendship, since love demands a little bit of future, and there was nothing for us but instants" (168) (26). When December comes around, Rieux points out that the "entire city lived without a future" (233).

People have been separated from the supposed ideal existence, which presumably includes all time frames.

Existential separation also has a negative effect on value judgments.

According to Rieux, the "plague had suppressed value j'udgments. And this was seen in the way that no one gave a hoot anymore about the quality of clothes or food purchased" (169) (27). This lack of concern regarding matters of life is also seen in matters of death; In Rieux's place of combat against the plague, there are five coffins; when they are filled, they are taken away to be emptied and then 85

brought back for more bodies—a gesture demonstrating a lack of respect for the

dead, even though the procedure is necessary. The lack of respect for the dead is

extended all the way to the grave, to mass graves. Two huge mass graves are

dug. one for women and one for men. but later women and men are buried

together, one atop another, "without a care for decency" (162). The bodies are stripped before burial, which perhaps explains Rieux's comment that "the most surprising thing was that throughout the epidemic we never lacked men to do this

Job [i.e.. to bury dead naked people]" (163). which in turn says something about

human nature.

Value judgments are also affected in areas that are more precisely in the domain of ethics. We learn that "homes set ablaze or shut up for sanitary reasons were pillaged" (158). Rieux mentions that the pillaging even takes place in homes that are still burning and even while the homeowner is watching!

In addition to causing existential separation in the sense of separating the individual from a presumed ideal existence or from elements of it. the plague also causes existential separation in the sense that people fabricate a realm of existence quite different from what they are accustomed to. They do this by becoming superstitious. In essence, they adopt a false existence. The people of

Oran become more inclined to wearing amulets for protection rather than going to church or praying. The people also become quite fond of false prophesies.

Rieux says. "For our fellow citizens, these superstitions took the place of religion, and this is why Paneloux's sermon took place in a church that was only three quarters full" (202).

The plague does not cause everyone to suffer from existential separation; in fact, the plague has the opposite effect on some people. Near the end of the novel. Rieux says that what can be learned from the plague is that "there are 86

more things to admire in men than things to despise" (279), We see this in how

several of the main characters Join together to fight the plague, even though it

increases their risk of contracting the disease. We also learn that sanitary

personnel (about one hundred men) and ten doctors come to the infested city to

help in the battle (140). For many people, the plague causes the opposite of

existential separation because it brings them closer to the realm of the ideal, a

realm in which only the best of man is revealed.

*

In The Plague, there is one major character who suffers from existential

separation prior to the beginning of the novel: Cottard. He seems to have always

been lacking in awareness, lacking in value judgments. Within the novel, he is

an exception to the rule. But in Camus's other works of fiction, those like

Cottard are more prominent. Existential separation is generally a pre-existing

condition. During the course of the work, the existential reparation is explained,

discussed and/or elaborated upon. In the case of Camus's very first novel. The

Happy Death, we see an elimination of existential separation—although

temporarily—in regard to Mersault. We see him find a presumed ideal existence—

at least, that is what he thinks. Near the end of the book. Camus tells us that

Mersault "had fulfilled his role, had perfected the only duty of man. which is solely to be happy" (202). But illness eventually separates him from his happiness. Whether or not Mersault really does find happiness is a matter that can be disputed. His belief of having fulfilled man's duty to be happy does coincide with a fever that could have been affecting his mental state.

Zagreus himself had at one time a presumed ideal existence. He had money and time, the components of happiness according to him. But the accident that puts him into a wheelchair causes him to experience e.xistential separation. 87

Despite the money and time, he is not happy. His condition keeps him physically separated from others. It would appear that he is always in his abode. He does not even have the perceived freedom of drinking anything to his heart's content because he does not want to urinate more than once per day. His existential separation is such that he has been contemplating suicide for quite some time, and eventually entices Mersault to kill him.

In The Stranger. e.xistential separation is a pre-e.xisting condition, but there remains the question of who is suffering from it. Another way of conveying this thought is to ask who is/are the absurd one(s) in the novel: Meursauit or everyone else? Two general views of reality are presented: Meursault's and everyone else's. These two views of reality focus to quite some extent on events pertaining to Meursault's mother. From the perspective of the majority.

Meursauit has veered away from the presumed ideal existence and has become inconsiderate toward his mother. From Meursault's perspective, people have turned from the presumed ideal existence and have been brainwashed by conformity. Whose view of the presumed ideal existence is correct or more correct? Since truth is not determined by the vote of the majority, we cannot assume that society sees matters properly. There is also no evidence that

Meursauit is interpreting reality correctly, but internal evidence in the novel does suggest that Meursauit is closer to doing so. He is considerably more practical than people in general. He refuses to "play the game." as Camus has pointed out.

For example, when the priest asks why Meursauit does not call him "my father." he responds by saying that the priest is not Meursault's father, but is "with the others," i.e., with those who play the game: trivial conformity, which in turn is largely based on absurdity.

Meursault's more accurate interpretation of reality is also seen in how he 88 explains his behavior. According to society. Meursauit is an insensitive, despicable individual: He sends his mother to a senior citizen home. And when she dies, he does not know her age and he does not want to view the body. After the funeral, he smokes, drinks coffee, starts an amorous liaison, goes swimming and goes to a movie. According to the society portrayed in the novel, such matters are of grave importance, but not according to Meursauit. His alleged insensitivity toward his mother can be explained by the less than perfect relationship he had with her rather than by an evil nature on his part. Society tends to assume that everyone has a deep loving relationship with one's mother, but this perspective is false. Rieux himself, whom we regard as a highly respectable character, does not have a deep loving relationship with his mother.

Regarding this relationship, we read that he "knew that it's not a big deal to love someone, or at least that a given love is never strong enough to find its own expression" (The Plague. 263).

Meursault's interpretation of reality, his self-interpretation, suggests that existential separation is less a problem with him than with society. His apparent greater satisfaction with life as compared to other characters in the novel also suggests that he is suffering less from existential separation than they are. To a large extent, he accepts existence: to a large extent, he accepts reality.

In Caligula, existential separation is also present before the play begins, but contrary to Meursauit, Caligula does not accept reality. He says, "Things as they are do not seem to me to be satisfying" (25). He later says that "the world...is not bearable. I therefore have need of the moon, or of happiness, or of immortality, of something that is perhaps crazy, but that is not of this world"

(26). Even though as emperor he is in a position to lead a supposedly perfect or ideal existence—Cherea and the second patrician both agree that he was "perfect" at one time (18-19)--Caligula chooses otherwise. Existence is not only unsatisfactory for him. but for others; "Men die and they are not happy" (27).

But does he use his influential position to help alleviate matters? No. Pierre-

Georges Castas points out that Caligula "denies all human values" (156). For three years he torments the patricians in various ways: insults, confiscation of goods, wife abduction, murder. Why does he do this? Scipion says that Caligula

"often iterated that bringing about suffering was the only way of deceiving himself" (30). It would seem that torturing people is a drug, an escape for him from an unpleasant reality.

For his actions. Caligula has the excuse that he is insane, perhaps the ultimate form of existential separation, but what is the excuse of the patricians, who have put up with Caligula for three years? They do eventually decide to kill him, but only after three years of torment. One explanation is that the patricians are like Meursault, that they have his tendency to accept reality, that they have his aloofness. We can see more than a hint of this in a remark the first patrician makes near the beginning of the play: "I lost my wife last year. I wept a lot and then I forgot. From time to time. I suffer anguish. But after all. it's nothing"

(18).

Another explanation for their lengthy tolerance of Caligula might have something to do with who they are. Helicon says that they are the Roman empire. He further notes. "If we lose our composure, the Empire loses its head"

(18). To save the Empire, they put up with their crazy emperor. But earlier in the play, we learn that the first, second, and elderly patrician all agree that no one is capable of suffering for over a year, yet they do so for three. They are apparently more tolerant of suffering than they first assumed, but they do have limits. An assassination plot is organized. According to Cherea, the Empire's 90

subjects "are incapable of living in a universe where the most bizarre thought can

in a second enter reality" (108). For the patricians and others, only so much

existential separation can be endured. Some—or at least one—can tolerate more:

Scipion. who develops an attachment for Caligula even though Caligula murdered

his father.

In The Misunderstanding, e.xistential separation also exists prior to the

beginning of the play. Mother and daughter have veered from the supposed ideal existence and have, as some in The Plague, entered deeply into the realm of immorality. Not only do they rob money from their clients, they rob their clients of their lives. Oddly enough, they commit their crimes in an effort to reduce their existential separation, at least from a financial standpoint. The daughter in particular is so existentially separated that she is glacial in regard to the brother she co-murders. She says that even if she had recognized him. matters would not have changed. She says. "For a man who has lived, life is a small affair. [...]

What happened is without importance: he had nothing more to experience" (229).

When she realizes that circumstances are such that she will not arrive at her desired existence, she commits suicide. Her mother also commits suicide, but does so for a different reason. Her existence is psychologically tied to that of her son's: "When a mother is no longer capable of recognizing her son. it's because her role on earth has come to an end" (226). Her intense psychological link to her son is further underlined when she tells her daughter that the love for a daughter is not as strong as the love for a son. The mother had lost her son once before, to exile, when he was a boy. Now she has lost him again, but this time the separation is too much for her to bear.

In State of Siege, existential separation also seems to be a pre-existing condition. In The Plague, people become superstitious over the course of the 91 scourge: in State of Siege, people are superstitious prior to the arrival of the plague. When a comet appears in the heavens, there is talk of the world or of

Spain coming to an end. This sort of superstitious response is quite odd in modern times, but it is nothing compared to other mental misalignments portrayed in the work, as we shall see.

Some of the characters, such as the judge and Nada, seem to have always been misguided, and during the course of the play, they become even nnore so.

Nada has a good excuse for being misguided: he is a drunkard. He believes only in wine. But the judge has no excuse. At the beginning of the play, he is very much like the judge in The Stranger, i.e.. quite religious. In fact, it is difficult to distinguish him from a priest. He even has a short discourse resembling

Paneloux's self-righteous condemnation, as seen in his first sermon. The judge tells the people, for example. "Pray God that he'll forgive your sins. Therefore, on your knees! On your knees. I tell you!" (FT. 193). And when he finds out that Nada believes only in wine, the judge prays. "Forgive him. my God. for he does not know what he is saying, and spare this city of your children" (FT. 194).

But when the plague man starts making people's lives difficult, we begin to see the judge's true colors. The judge sides with the intruder. The judge says. "If crime becomes the law, it ceases to be crime" (FT. 251)(28). As a result, he turns against Diego, his future son-in-law. because of Diego's resistance of the plague man. And when the son of the judge's wife is taken hostage and threatened with deliberate infection, the judge shows no concern. Why? Because the boy is only his wife's son, not his—she had committed adultery.

The plague man, of course, is suffering from existential separation since before the beginning of the play, but he is not interested in attaining what most people would consider to be an ideal existence. However, he is interested in attaining what hg thinks would be best. In essence, he wants to be an absolute

ruler, but seemingly more important to him is that everyone submit to him and

show him complete loyalty. This will be difficult because he is almost as

misguided as Caligula. The plague man makes pointless, irrational demands of

the people. Like Caligula, to find for himself a better or more bearable

existence, he must do evil. He says, "One cannot be happy without doing harm

to others. It's the justice of this world" (PT. 289)(29).

At first, the plague man's secretary is perhaps worse than the plague man

himself. She, too, is challenged existentially—she changes eventually, but only at

the end of the play. She says. "Everything will be for the best in the best of

worlds" (PT, 219), and what she has in mind is the plague man's concept of his

"new society" (PT. 223), a society in which "it is good that you [the people] be

vexed" (PT. 228). It is also a society in which Diego cannot kiss his fiancee

because love is forbidden.

At the beginning of the play, matters are going well with Diego. He has a

promising career as a doctor, and he is going to get married. He is also healthy.

We can assume that he is happy, but the plague man eventually changes this situation, causing Diego to experience existential separation. He is stricken by the plague. This affects him mentally to the point that he takes a hostage—the half-brother of his fiancee—and threatens to infect him. But Diego soon comes to his senses and releases the boy. Diego makes an effort to fight the existential separation that he is experiencing. He begins to no longer fear death, and encourages others to do likewise. Diego is healed. The plague man realizes that he has no direct power over Diego because of his lack of fear of death, but the plague man does have indirect power over him, via his fiancee, Victoria. She is stricken with the plague. Diego proposes to exchange his life for hers. Because 93

of pre-existing rules, the plague man is required to accept Diego's proposal, but

the plague man makes a proposal of his own: he is willing to let both Victoria

and Diego live and escape if Diego hands the city over to him. Diego cannot go

along with this proposal. His original proposal becomes reality, and he thus dies

so that Victoria and other inhabitants of the city may live and be free.

In The Just Assassins, the Grand Duke is the presumed source of

existential separation, yet hardly any attention is paid to him. nor to the actual source of existential separation; poverty. The victims are the terrorists, who

think they can partially alleviate their anguish by killing the Duke. Other killings are necessary for a presumed total liberation. The Duke's death, however, does

not noticeably reduce the e.xistential separation of the terrorists.

Most of the attention in the play is on Kaliayev. who throws the deadly

bomb. Although terrorists are people who are already out of the ordinary, Camus seems to go out of his way to make Kaliayev appear particularly odd. even compared to Stepan. who is also odd. and who in turn has reservations regarding

Kaliayev. Religion is the focus of Kaliayev's existential separation if we assume that there is indeed a presumed ideal or correct religion to be separated from.

How he views religious matters is quite contradictory; When Dora fears that he

might hesitate to throw the bomb if he were to catch sight of the Duke's eyes.

Kaliayev tells her. "But with God's help, haired will come to me at the right moment and will blind me" (PT, 326). From an idealistic standpoint. God does not approve of violence, nor is He overly fond of hatred. We also see the contradictory nature of Kaliayev's religious perspective in that he crosses himself in front of a religious statue, even though we are told that he does not practice religion. When he is in prison, he tells Foka, his fellow prisoner, "God can do nothing. Justice is our business" (PT, 361)(I4). yet Kaliayev's previous behavior 94

suggests a different opinion.

In Exile and the Kingdom and in The Fall, existential separation is also

present, but I have already discussed it in the section on exile, so I shall not do so again here. The presumed ideal existence that various characters are separated

from is what Camus calls the kingdom.

*

Camus himself suffered from existential separation. Based on his notebooks and other personal statements, it seems that he had certain characteristics in common with some of his characters. Because of existential separation, the characters in The Plague and elsewhere exhibit a strong need for companionship, are impatient of their present, experience negative changes in their value Judgments, and/or adopt odd superstitions. The story is about the same for Camus. He. too. had aggressors in his life to cause him existential separation. He experienced poverty, sickness, separation from loved ones, exile.

He witnessed tyranny (the Germans, and the situation in Algeria), and had to deal with it. Such matters affected him. Like Rieux. he felt a strong need for companionship, even though at times he got fed up with people and wanted to be left alone. What he enjoyed so much about soccer and being associated with live theater was the company, the camaraderie. And like those in Oran. Camus was impatient of his present, thanks to a large extent to pulmonary disease, which put death right at his doorstep on more than one occasion.

Camus's existential separation can also be seen in what seems to be an odd superstition or belief: he believed in a special star. He mentions this star in his private writings, but does not elaborate much on it. However, it seems to be tied to his happiness and creative abilities. It is like a Muse to him. In a response to a questionnaire presented to him by an American academic. Camus publicly 95 acknowledges that he experiences "the feeling of a particular 'star'" (Fitch. 36).

This is quite odd. especially for someone as well-educated as Camus. His existential separation was indeed quite unique. 96

2.5.- Solitude

Solitude could have been included in the previous section, on existential

separation, and in the section before that, on physical separation from loved ones,

but because of its importance to Camus. I would like to deal with it separately.

In The Plague. I find that there are three types of solitude: there is

solitude in the sense of being alone; there is solitude in the sense of feeling

alone; and there is solitude in the curious sense of being ignorant of what is right.

These various types of solitude, however, seem to be intertwined, especially the

first two.

In Oran, during the plague, solitude is a major problem. Rieux even talks

about "extremes of solitude": "In short, in these extremes of solitude, no one

could expect help from his neighbor, and everyone remained alone with each

one's concern" (74)(30). Rieux focuses to quite some extent on Rambert's

solitude. Rambert suffers so much from it that he is willing to pay an

extravagant amount of money to leave Oran and be with his lady. He takes

"solitary walks" from cafe to cafe. He also spends time in the abandoned train

station and reads the old schedules. He does these things to daydream and thus

help alleviate the pain of his solitude. And when Rambert starts living in the

"little Spanish house." Rieux notes that "he lived there alone most of the time"

(186). Rambert thus experiences both feeling alone and being alone.

When it comes to solitude problems. Grand comes in second, at least in

regard to obvious solitude. For the bulk of the novel, he does not seem to have

much of a problem with being away from Jeanne. It is not until near the end of

the book, when the plague catches up to Grand, that he experiences his major solitude attacks, attacks which are the most touching and extreme in the novel. such as the scene in front of the store window, where he is re-experiencing her in

his mind and hearing her voice, a voice he has not heard in years.

When Grand eventually comes to his senses, he starts working on his

sentence again—a sentence he had been working on for quite some time, a

sentence he had been trj'ing to make perfect. But this time he eliminates all of

the adjectives. Steven FCellman sees in this a means of escaping solitude, or at

least, isolation. Kellman writes. "Adjectives are arguably the most idiosyncratic

parts of speech. In moving from a highly ornate, distinctive sentence...to an

unadorned statement of fact. Grand is suppressing what is most distinctive in his style. He is renouncing personality, which Rieux comes to feel is a lu.xury that

can only serve to isolate an individual from the community" (504-505).

Rieux is also suffering from solitude, but it is not as great or as visible as

that of other characters. Perhaps this is because he is living with his mother, who provides understanding and companionship. Her presence helps in reducing

the stress involved with his being separated from his wife, who he realizes probably feels completely alone (174-75).

Joseph Majault believes that Tarrou is suffering from solitude (55). but there is no focus on the matter in the novel. Yet it is conceivable that perhaps he is. There is no mention of there being a woman in his life, and he also does not have a regular Job, so he does not have co-workers, although he does work with

Rieux and company in fighting the plague. When Tarrou falls victim to plague, he has no family members or loved ones to take care of him. Rieux cares for him himself. It would seem that Tarrou's only friend is Rieux.

The chronicle of the plague ends on Cottard. "who had an ignorant heart, i.e., solitary" (274)(31). He is suffering primarily from the third type of solitude, that of being ignorant of what is right. We see this in his black market 98

dealings. We see this type of solitude also in how Rambert tries to use the black

market to illegally get out of Oran. but in the end, he is delivered from this sort

of solitude upon discovering a sense of belonging with those of Oran.

I will venture to say that the police officer who assaults Cottard is also

suffering of this third type of solitude, the one consisting of an ignorant heart, as

Rieux puts it. When Cottard is caught and is in no danger of getting away, the

officer punches him twice, "with all the force of his fists" (276). and when

Cottard falls to the ground, the officer kicks him with full force. What makes

matters more interesting is that we are told immediately prior that Cottard is a small man. which in turn tells us more about what kind of person the police

officer is. His sort of solitude might be the worst of all.

Katherine Brearley believes that Paneloux also suffers from solitude;

"Paneloux...so isolates himself with his faith that he refuses the ministrations of a doctor and dies in complete solitude" (120). However, his faith can be

considered as having precluded a solitary death: he is not alone because he has

God.

*

Solitude is a significant theme in Camus s other works of fiction. especially in his very first one. The Two Sides of the Coin. .Many of the stories

(or essays) in this collection involve solitude to some degree or another, but I shall discuss only the most pertinent ones. In the first section of "Irony." we learn that the paralyzed elderly woman "felt that she did not want to be alone"

(PE. 17). When everyone is about to leave to go to the cinema, except her. the visitor shakes her hand, but then we are told that he tries to withdraw it. as if the woman were holding on to it for longer than usual. This suggests an unconscious attempt on her part to prevent her solitude. 99

In the second section of "Irony." an elderly man is talking to some young

people at a cafe, but despite his lies to make his talk more interesting, the young

people depart. He feels that he is being condemned to silence and solitude. This

incident is not unique. For quite some time he had been staying out late looking

for people to listen to his life story. When he gets home, his wife is already

asleep. Almost immediately after we learn that he has a wife, we are told, "He

was alone and old." (PE. 19). Having a close companion apparently does not

mean that one is spared solitude or aloneness.

Solitude is also a problem for the narrator of "Death in the Soul." He is

in Prague, but he does not speak the language. We are told that for days he had

not pronounced a single word, that he would have cried like a baby if someone

had opened her/his arms to him. Such was his solitude, or at least his sense of

exile.

In The Happy Death, we have a similar situation. After killing Zagreus.

Mersault goes to Prague. And although he goes to a restaurant and visits

churches and museums, i.e.. places with people, he experiences solitude, and

often has the desire to cry.

In The Stranger, the theme of solitude focuses primarily on two

characters: Salamano and Meursault. The more deeply felt solitude is experienced by Salamano. For eight years, he had been walking his dog every day, twice a day. beating and insulting the creature quite often. But he did have a bond with it. When the dog disappears, Salamano is shaken to tears.

In prison, Meursault is in a good position to experience solitude to a significant degree, but he does not. What solitude he does experience seems to

be minor. The reader of the novel does not really notice the solitude until the very end of the book, where, in order to feel less alone, Meursault wishes for 100

there to be a lot of people at his execution and that they welcome him with cries of hatred. Why he does not experience substantial solitude in prison may have something to do with his lack of meaningful interpersonal relationships. He is emotionally close to no one. When he starts having desires for sex. he does not

think about Marie, even though he was willing to marry her.

In Caligula, we see the three kinds of solitude quite explicitly, as in The

Plague. In Caligula's speech on solitude (II, xiv). he rhetorically asks, "Which solitude?" This implies the existence of more than one. He first acknowledges solitude in the sense of feeling alone. He calls this the solitude of "poets and the powerless [or impotent]" (82)(32). He later addresses, and to a greater extent, solitude in the sense of being alone. In essence, he says that we are never alone:

The weight of the future and the past is always with us. Those whom we have killed are with us. Memories are always with us, which include memories of people, desires, regrets and bitterness. Because of all this. Caligula longs for true solitude, i.e., to be free from the above company.

Caligula's speech on solitude is triggered by Scipion's comment that

Caligula suffers from what Rieux calls an ignorant heart. Speaking to Caligula,

Scipion remarks: "What an ignoble and bloodstained heart you must have. Ah!

Evil and hatred must torture you so much!" (81). Almost immediately afterward.

Scipion continues, "And what unearthly solitude must be yours!" Scipion is associating the mentality of wrongdoing with the mental state of solitude, but

Caligula does not understand. For him, only the other two kinds of solitude exist.

In The Misunderstanding, solitude crops up after the murder of Jan.

Maria. Jan's wife, realizes that she must "live in this terrible solitude where memories are a torment" (240). Martha also suffers from solitude, but contrary 101 to Caligula, she understands and acknowledges the third type of solitude. She says. "Crime, too. is a solitude, even if a thousand people get together to accomplish it. And it is fair that I die alone, after having lived and killed alone"

(241).

In Exile and the Kingdom, solitude's presence is also felt. In "The

Adulterous Woman." when Janine and her husband arrive at the hotel, we learn that she "felt only her solitude, and the cold that penetrated her. and a heavier weight at the location of her heart" (18) (33). It is this solitude, in part, that pushes Janine toward her adulterous e.xistential experience with the desert and the night.

In "The Guest," Daru experiences solitude, but it is not central to the story. For Daru, at first, "the solitude and the silence had been hard..." (91).

Later, however, and throughout the bulk of the story, it is no problem. But the story does end with solitude of the first type. The story's last sentence: "In this vast country that he had loved so much, he was alone."

In "Jonas..." (and in the related silent play. The Artist's Life), solitude is a goal rather than something to avoid. Both artists go mad because of the constant visits by admirers. At the end of "Jonas " we read that Rateau looked at the canvas and saw that all it had on it was just one word, despite numerous hours of work on the part of Jonas. The rest of the canvas was unpainted. The word could not be read clearly, but it was either solitaire or solidaire.

In "The Rock That Grows," solitude is a problem for D'Arrast. He is in a foreign country and knows no one there beyond a superficial manner. The culture is also very different. His solitude is such that he is driven to take over the promise made by another man to carry a certain painfully heavy rock as part of a religious procession. D'Arrast does this even though he is not religious. He 102

wants to belong to the group. The last sentence of the story: "Sit down with us."

3fe

In an article he wrote for L'Express, for December 2. 1955 (Exl 14-17).

Camus discusses the results of a certain opinion poll of the French. It turns out that most French citizens view happiness as the absence of sickness. But what most interested Camus was that only four in a thousand French citizens thought that liberty was the supreme good. Camus is surprised. He says. "Liberty, after ail. is not the natural state of man." At the end of the article, he says that he is glad that there are at least four in a thousand French citizens who place liberty above all. This computes to 180.000 people—in 1955 figures. He says: "A solitude has just come to an end. and a hope has begun."

Judging from what Camus says in his personal writings, it is clear that he struggled considerably both with solitude and the lack of it. He first dealt with solitude in the sense of being alone. Early in his adult life, it was not much of a problem. He says, "Curious: Inability to be alone, inability not to be. The two are accepted. The two have advantages" (IC. 45). Later on. while in Italy, he says: "I have suffered from being alone, but for having kept my secret. I have conquered the wretchedness of being alone. And today. I know of no greater glory than to live alone and unknown" (IC. 76-77). Soon afterward, he says.

"Solitude, lu.xury of the rich" (IC. 84). This journal entry is for September 23.

1937. But by April. 1940, his frame of mind changes. He notes to himself:

"You would not write so much on solitude if you knew how to take maximum advantage of it" (IC. 213). Some time later: "The great problem to resolve

'practically': can one be happy and solitary[?]" (2C, 83). But Camus had already found satisfaction in being alone (IC, 76-77). so why is he asking this question?

Perhaps because he is now more closely associating being alone with feeling 103

alone. Indeed, he does subsequently suffer from "unbearable solitude": "I can

neither believe it nor resign myself to it" {2C. 189). yet in subsequent references,

he repeatedly expresses a desire to be alone: (3C, 60. 180. 275). It would seem

that, in essence. Camus wanted to be alone but without feeling alone. This

would explain his statements regarding both his desire for solitude and his desire

to avoid it. He is using the word solitude to mean two different things: being

alone, and feeling alone.

He expresses his reasons for wanting to be alone in a letter to Pierre

Berger. Camus writes about needing three lives and several hearts to get by. He

does not have the time to write magazine articles, nor even the time to raise an

argument against Sartre. Because of his lack of time, Camus needs four years to

write a book that can be written in one or two (3C. 75-77). Why is he so short

on time? People.

To work, he needed to be alone. Perhaps ironically, Camus worked on

projects dealing with solitude, the main ones of which have been examined above.

But among those projects that never came into being, it is worth mentioning a

short story about a mature woman arriving alone at Cannes (2C, 323), and a

project for a play on the impossibility of solitude (3C. 115).

The third type of solitude, the ignorant heart type, is also alluded to in

Camus's notebooks. There is an entry that says, "The will is also a solitude"

(IC, 235). This entry is alone, unexplained, but several immediately previous

entries deal with man's waywardness, i.e., with what Rieux calls the ignorant

heart. By "will." I believe that Camus is thinking about the will of man to do evil, which in turn is a kind of solitude. Years later. Camus says, "For most

men, war is the end of solitude. For me. it is definitely solitude" (2C, 326).

Here. Camus uses the term solitude in two different ways: first of all. in the 104 sense of being alone: secondly, in the sense of having an ignorant heart, which at the foundation of war. And lastly. I would like to quote the following by

Camus: "If I have always refused lies.... it's because I could never accept solitude. But now solitude must also be accepted" (3C. 82). Here, once again, we see solitude being associated with the ignorant heart, or at least with falsehood, a characteristic of the ignorant heart. 105

2.6.- Death

In the words of Harold Durfee, "Death, standing at the end and consuming all. indicates a complete lack of meaning, for with it both our happiness and our suffering are over and neither has any ultimate significance" (202). Death, in its various forms, is perhaps the ultimate aggression. In this section. I would like to examine death in a general sense as it appears in Camus's work. In subsequent sections. I shall discuss specific manifestations of death: murder, execution, suicide.

The "order of this world is regulated by death," Rieux says to Tarrou

(121) (34). Rieux goes on to explain that "perhaps it is better for God that people not believe in him and that people fight with all their strength against death."

Just prior to this statement. Rieux mentions how he heard a woman cry out

"Never!" at the moment of death. Although the woman was being unrealistic, she had what Rieux considered to be the correct attitude toward death. Death has to be resisted regardless of how overpowering it is. Rieux, because he is a doctor, is often exposed to death, but despite this, he tells us that he is not accustomed to seeing people die (121). He will not allow himself to become accustomed to death.

There is no shortage of death in The Plague. Three main characters die

(Paneloux, Othon and Tarrou), as well as some barely mentioned characters, such as Dr. Richard. Thousands of rats die in agony. Even on the stage, death is represented: Because of the plague, a performance company gets stuck in Oran: the opera that is performed, and repeatedly so for months, is Orpheus and

Eurydice. which has death as a theme. People go see this spectacle despite its unpleasant theme, which mimics that of the city. Apparently death had not 106

knocked hard enough on everyone's door, but matters change upon the real death, upon the stage, by the plague, of one of the singers. Death is no longer a performance.

But the most "real" death is that of Othon's son. It is the only death that is described to any significant extent. In a communication to Jean Grenier (April

15, 1943) Camus says. "To die young is unbearable" (Boone, 141). It is this sensation that Camus tries to create in describing the suffering and eventual death of someone who is not only a child but also believed to be innocent.

Death brings with it separation. It also changes those left behind. This is the case for Othon. After the boy's death, Rieux and Tarrou go and visit Othon at the isolation camp. Tarrou notices that "something had changed." Othon was different. This change is based solely on his knowledge that his son had died.

He is unaware of how much the boy suffered. When Othon inquires about the matter. Tarrou answers, "no, he did not really suffer" (218). But later on. Othon does come to realize to some extent how much his son suffered because Othon himself eventually gets the plague and dies. Ironically, Othon joins the anti- plague team in order to feel less separated from his child (234), which in turn contributes to his own death and reunion in death with his son.

*

In Camus's other works of fiction, death is viewed and presented in a variety of ways. From The Two Sides of the Coin, we begin to notice his fascination with death. The third section of "Irony" is about a grandmother, her youngest son, her eldest daughter and the daughter's two children, all of whom live together (this is autobiographical). When Grandma gets sick and vomits, the children think she is acting. When she dies, the children also think that she is acting. We see here perhaps Camus's first refusal to accept death, since he 107

represents one of the two children, the other being his brother. Let us also note

the lighthearted aspect associated with death.

In "Between Yes and No" ("Entre oui et non"). death is taken more

seriously and is associated with solitude. The story is about a mother and her

son. The husband/father is no longer with them because he died in the war. This

story is also autobiographical in nature.

The final story in The Two Sides of the Coin deals with death once again

in a lighthearted fashion. In the story, a certain woman buys her future grave spot. She visits it every day, as one would visit a good friend or beloved

relative. In a way. death is a friend. On AH Saints' Day, she finds violets left at

her tomb out of pity.

In Camus's first novel. The Happv Death, death seems to be a highly secondary theme, even though Zagreus's death is central to the novel, and even though the title of the novel and the titles of the novel's parts contain the word death. Camus contemplated calling the novel The Happv Life, which seems to

me to be a more appropriate title.

Two main deaths are treated in the novel: Zagreus's death, which I shall discuss in sections 2.7 and 2.9: and the death of Mersault's mother, which can be assumed to be a counterpart to the death of Meursault's mother in The Stranger.

Regarding The Happy Death, there is no mention of whether or not Mersault cried at his mother's funeral, but it is said that relatives were admonished not to cry in order not to increase Mersault's pain. Also, people "recalled the son's great feelings for his mother" (40). We are told that he got dressed the best he could and took care of the preparations. He threw in his handful of dirt and shook a lot of hands. Mersault also showed irritation because of the lack of transportation for those present. 108

Regarding The Stranger. G.V. Banks notes that it "begins with a death

(Meursault's mother), it has as its central pivot a death (the Arab), it ends with a

death (Meursault)" (33). Death is everywhere in The Stranger, even in

Meursault's name—the first five letters mean difi (imperative or indicative) in

French. Death is present from the very first sentence of the novel: "Today. Mom

died." The second sentence. "Or perhaps yesterday [she died]. I don't know."

sets the tone. Meursault is not overly moved by death. If he were, he would be

more concerned about when his mother actually died. His lack of interest

regarding death is also seen in his behavior at the wake and after the burial.

After he ends up in prison, he tells his lawyer: "Without a doubt. I really loved

my mother, but this didn't mean anything. All sound people have more or less wished for the death of those they loved" (102). And once Meursault is found guilty of murder and is to be executed, he is still not overly concerned about death, although he is more conscious of it and develops an interest in executions.

And considering how he treats the prison chaplain and what he says to him.

Meursault definitely is not concerned about what exists after death.

Will Meursault face death? The novel does not tell us. but Joanne Rea believes that he will. She observes that the tramways in The Stranger are associated with death. She notes several passages in which they are associated with ends. e.g.. the end of the day, or the end of a road (215). She notes that

Meursault hears a tramway while he is taken to his cell after he is found guilty of murder. His having heard the tramway supposedly implies that he is going to encounter an end himself: death.

In Caligula, death is also not highly regarded, but it is much more prevalent than in The Stranger. Based on his notebooks, it seems that Camus considered calling the play Caligula or the Meaning of Death (IC, 43). but 109

apparently dismissed this title because the play does not really go into what death

is all about, even though there is a lot of it.

Death is at the beginning and at the end of the play—and. of course, at

other points in between. However, it is only at the end points that death seems to

have or will have a significant effect. .A^t the end of the play. Caligula is about to

die. and this will obviously change matters in Rome. And just prior to the

beginning of the play. Orusilla. who is Caligula's sister and lover, dies. This death is behind Caligula's lunacy. Prior to her death. Caligula was "perfect" (18).

Cherea even says that "everything was going too well" (18)! But regardless of what questions one may have concerning the morality of an emperor who fools around with his sister, her death nevertheless does change him. E. Freeman, however, disagrees. This scholar says. "Caligula has been affected not by the personal loss of Drusilla but by his discovery of the absurd..." (37). Perhaps this is so. but what triggered the discovery of the absurd if not Drusilla's death? St.

Aubyn writes, "In Caligula we find the death of the other precipitating the whole action of the drama" (125).

Caligula himself is not concerned about his own death: When information regarding an assassination plot gets into his hands, he does not even bother to look it over. He is not interested in killing the person behind the plot, even though he knows exactly who it is. Although he does not fear death, he is nevertheless interested in it. The poetry contest he sets up has death as the topic, but judging from how he behaves at the event, it would seem that his interest in death could be greater. And judging from how many people die at his hands, he is definitely not as eager as Rieux and company to fight death. When .Mereia dies. Caligula says; "It's nothing. It's the same in the end. A little earlier, a little later..." (72). And even when he himself is dying, he faces death not with 110

fear or poetic reverence but with defiance and perhaps ridicule. His final words

are. "I'm still alive!"

In The Misunderstanding, there is more of a balance in the attitude toward

death; two characters are quite mindful of death: three are not. Jan has a fear of

death. He refers to this fear as his "old anguish" (207). He goes on to say, "I

know its name. It's the fear of eternal solitude, fear that there won't be an

answer." Maria is also affected by death, and in particular, her husband's death.

At first, she does not believe that he is dead, but she eventually comes to realize

that it is true. She experiences psychological pain, and prays aloud for pity.

When the elderly servant comes in. who perhaps represents God. she asks him for help, but he says "No!" He is not sympathetic to her needs, which is understandable considering that he is a silent partner in the numerous murders committed by his employers, both of whom have little regard for death—or life.

In State of Siege, death is actually one of the characters: the secretary.

For the bulk of the play, she is quite despicable, but as the result of Diego's self- sacrifice and revolt, she remembers that she once was a lot nicer. She blames the plague man for changing her from Death into Murder. She says to the plague man; "I was free before [meeting] you and [I was! associated with chance. No one hated me then. [...] But you put me into the service of logic and rules"

(PT, 293-94). As a result, she became a murderer.

To the plague man. death is nothing. He seemingly kills for fun. Since he is the secretary's boss, he is thus the boss of Death, but only to the point where revolt comes into the picture. Because of Diego's revolt, killing people is no longer an easy task. The plague man, and Death with him, are driven out, but not before one last death: Diego's. At first, Diego is horrified by death. He has threatened to kill a boy to keep the judge from denouncing him. which in turn Ill would have meant death for Diego. But he then comes to his senses. He releases the boy and rebels against the plague man. He is able to do this because he no longer fears death. He even slaps the secretary. When Victoria, his fiancee, falls ill. he offers his own life in exchange for hers. When he dies, he does so in a state of happiness, not grief or fear.

In The Just Assassins, as in other works by Camus, two basic attitudes toward death prevail: death is either a serious matter, or it is not. For Stepan, death seems to be trivial, a mere tool that can be used in an unjust manner if innocent people, such as children, happen to get in the way. Stepan strongly disapproves of Kaliayev's refusal to throw the bomb the first time around, which

Kaliayev does not do because of the presence of children in the Grand Duke's carriage. Kaliayev regards the children as innocent. Their deaths are not necessary. Only the Grand Duke's death is needed. Of the Duke's death.

Kaliayev says, "He died surprised. Such a death is nothing" (PT, 371)(35). It seems that according to Kaliayev. a necessary death can be nothing, but an unnecessary death, such as that of a child, is something, and must be avoided.

Although Kaliayev has a greater awareness of death than does Stepan.

Kaliayev still does not fear death to the point that most people do: "To die for the idea is the only way to be at the same level as the idea" (373), and this is e.xactly what we see happen in the play. Once in prison, he is given an opportunity to save his neck if only he were to betray his fellow terrorists, but he refuses and is executed.

Dora, his lover and fellow terrorist, does not fear death either. She wants to be the next one to throw the bomb, and then hang by the same rope as

Kaliayev.

In The Fall. Clamence is tormented by the death of the woman whose life 112

he could have saved if only he had not been such a coward. His excuse for not

saving her: the water was too cold. This death changes him, and turns him into a

penitent-judge. In the last paragraph of the novel, he says. "Oh young woman,

throw yourself again into the water so that I may have a second chance to save

the both of us!"

Death is a theme in The First Man. The significance of the title is not

perfectly clear, but it seems to have something to do with Jacques's search for his

father, who died in war while Jacques was a baby. Well after he becomes an adult, he goes looking for his father's grave, which is something his mother wanted him to do, even though she had never seen her husband's grave herself.

At the grave. Jacques calculates the age of his father: twenty-nine. His father was younger than he is. In part, because of this. Jacques considers himself to be the first man. His being in this position is brought out more explicitly in the title of the second part of the novel: The Son or the First Man. Also, because of his father's death, he has "to learn alone, grow up alone,...find his morality and truth alone, to finally be born as a man to later be born again in a more difficult way, that of being born to others..." (181). These words express bitterness. Because of his father's death, Jacques experiences suffering that he would have otherwise avoided.

A significant portion of the novel deals with Grandma, who represents

Camus's actual grandmother. About halfway through the book, we are told that

Grandma and the uncle "now lived in the proximity of death; in other words, always in the present" (127). This statement makes us recall the inhabitants of

Oran, who also live in the present because of the proximity of death.

Grandma has seen quite a bit of death in her life: the deaths of two of her children, her husband, her son-in-law and all of her nephews. Despite this, or 113

because of this, she is quite irreverent toward death—or the dead; If someone

were to tell her that a given person had died, she would often respond, "Good.

He will no longer fart" (153). In a note for a te.xt fragment found with the

manuscript but not yet incorporated into the main text, Camus indicates that the grandmother will die (272).

The First Man may be an anti-death work in the sense that Camus intended to leave it unfinished. His premature death, of course, made sure that he did not change his mind. In an article not specifically on Camus, Gennie Luccioni points out that according to Roland Barthes. a novel is a death, since the world in the novel is a completed world. Luccioni goes on to say that "today [her article dates from 1968], the writer and the artist have begun to conceive the possibility of an

'unfinished' work, of an 'open' work, a work 'in progress'" (748). It would seem that Camus was around a decade ahead of his time when it occurred to him to purposefully leave The First Man unfinished, to make it a non-death novel.

Before leaving this chapter sub-subsection. I would like to discuss Revolt in the Asturias. Although Camus wrote this in collaboration with other people, we do have a good idea as to what parts he wrote (PT, 1852-53). In this play, death is not highly feared or earnestly avoided. There are many who die in a senseless manner. For example, in the first scene of the second act, a section of the play attributed to Camus, two men are needed for a suicide terrorist bombing; one to drive the truck, and the other to light the match. The miners willingly draw lots. Ruiz and Leon are selected. They do not say a word. There is no talk about family members or loved ones being left behind to grieve the losses.

The two men shake hands with the other miners and then leave. Some time later, the explosion is heard. It is as if death—or life—were insignificant. But at the end of the play, we learn that there is indeed some concern over death, but only 114

after death: From the four corners of the theater, characters who died give short

monologues. The general concern that they express is that they will be forgotten

and that their sacrifices will be for naught.

*

In "The Wind of Djemila." in Nuptials. Camus comments: "It doesn't

please me to believe that death opens onto another life. For me death is a closed

door" (PE, 63). Later on in the essay, he points out. "What is the color blue and

what shall we think of it? It's the same difficulty with death. Death and colors,

we don't know how to discuss them" (PE. 64). However, as we have seen.

Camus does know how to discuss death, or at least raise the topic to a significant

degree.

In his notebooks, death is a commonly treated subject, especially in the

last volume of his published notebooks. The entries are so numerous that I cannot go over them all. but I shall point out a few of them.

One entry states, in part. "Nuremberg. Sixty thousand corpses under the debris. It's not permitted to drink the water, but no one wants to bathe in it either. It's the water of the Morgue" (2C, 171). This is about as graphic as

Camus gets in regard to death. Usually, death is treated in a non-offensive way, although the unpleasantness of death is always discernible. One isolated entry reads, "One hundred forty thousand dying per day: ninety-seven per minute: fifty- seven million in one year" (3C. 273). The entry has no explanation as to what it is referring to, but my guess is that it refers to the then-current worldwide

mortality rate. Although the entry is a dry statistic, it nevertheless packs a painful punch. On the other hand. Camus can be quite lighthearted regarding death. In a travel journal entry referring to his trip to America, he writes: "One of the ways of knowing a country is to know how one dies there. 'You die and 115

we do the rest.' say the posters. Cemeteries are private property: 'Hurry up and

reserve your space'" (V32—what the posters say is not a translation, but is already

in English: apparently. Camus really did encounter such slogans in the States).

And coming back to his notebooks, there is an entry on death in Mexico. Camus observes how Mexican children eat candy heads of dead folks. He says,

"Children laugh with death: they find it gay: they find it to be sweet and sugared"

(IC, 207). Yet death can be bitter. Camus discovered this when his mother died. Her death is said to be "grave" and "unbelievable" (3C, 134). He also worries about his own death: "Even my death will be disputed. And yet what I most deeply desire today is a quiet death, which will leave the ones I love in a calm state" {3C, 42).

Camus also treats death philosophically: "The only possible freedom is freedom in regard to death" (IC, 118). It is the fear of death that robs us of freedom. Fortunately, at least according to Camus, there are ways to deliver ourselves from the fear of death. One way is to forget about religion and the afterlife. In a later notebook entry, we read, "Calypso offers Ulysses a choice between immortality and the land of his country. He rejects immortality" (2C.

22)(36). Let us note the wording. Camus does not write, "He accepts the land of his country," but "He rejects immortality," i.e., Camus opts to using the wording that more forcefully denies immortal life. People are to accept their mortality.

There is even an entry that states. "We live too long" (2C, 249)1

The fear of death can be avoided or reduced by living. In The Myth of

Sisyphus, we learn that it is the quantity of experiences that count—not the quality. In his notebooks, Camus claims that he has conquered his fear of death:

"It is not of death that I'm afraid, but rather of living in death" (3C, 125).

Immediately afterward: "Annihilation has nothing to scare he who has lived a 116 lot." Since Camus does not fear death, we can assume that he has lived a lot. that he has followed his own advice as given in The Myth of Sisyphus. However, his not fearing death seems to have had little effect on his interest in death. As we have seen above, his fiction has much to do with death, and his notebooks reveal other projects involving death. One book project he never got around to would have been on an individual who read biographies of famous people to see if they had found out how to oppose death (2C. 287). Another book project would have been on a woman who accepts to die at thirty because she has had enough joys in life, and she would live her life again despite its extreme misfortunes (3C.

50). And finally, Camus had plans for a short story on a mute pregnant girl who is unable to tell her lover that she is pregnant. "He runs with her in his arms.

She dies" (3C. 56).

As a final note, I shall mention that Camus's interest in death can also be seen in his fascination with ruins, which Frantz Favre believes are associated not with the death of a given civilization but with the death of Man (113). Perhaps

Favre is right. 117

2.7.- Murder

Death can come one's way by various means: via old age, accident, physical ailment, stupidity, psychological distress, an e.xecutioner. or a murderer.

Some forms of death are intentional and some are unintentional. Camus was primarily interested in the former, the type of death that is preventable. In this section, I shall deal with murder.

In The Plague. Camus could have discussed murder to some extent if he had wanted to, but he did not. Near the end of he novel, Cottard goes crazy and starts shooting at people. Someone in the crowd is injured and so is a police officer, yet no one dies. Having someone murdered would have added to the tragic air of the novel, but Camus seems to go in the opposite direction: the only victim of Cottard's gun is a dog, and its death is described with a bit of humor.

When it got shot, we are told that it "flipped itself over like a crepe" (275).

However, there is more seriousness involved in the hardly mentioned concept of the innocent murderer. Tarrou says to Rieux, "There are scourges and victims, and nothing else. If by saying this I become a scourge myself, at least I'm not consenting. I'm trying to be an innocent murderer" {229). The context of the statement provides a clarification regarding what an innocent murderer is: Tarrou has been explaining that those who approve of capital punishment are on the side of the scourge. Tarrou. for a while, goes along with capital punishment, but in an unintentional manner. Because of this, he is an innocent murderer. He says that it is best to be on the side of the victims, but he seems to imply that this is not always possible. If we are forced to be on the side of the scourge

(aggressor), we should do so without consenting. An innocent murderer is one who murders without consenting to the murder. Perhaps Camus left actual 118

murder out of The Plague in order to bring attention to the concept of the

innocent murderer.

*

In several of Camus's other works of fiction, actual murder is part of the story line. However, in Camus's first novel. The Happy Death, it is not clear whether or not the killing of Zagreus is a murder. Jeanne Le Hir believes that his killing is an "act comparable to the e.xtravagances of Caligula" (41). When I first read the novel, my impression was that Zagreus died as the result of an assisted suicide, but the scholars I have consulted and who discuss the novel say that he was murdered. The main argument for murder is that Zagreus says that he would do nothing to abridge his life, but this does not mean that he would not have someone else do it for him. Zagreus shows Mersault, a complete stranger, his money chest. Zagreus lives alone and is confined to a wheelchair. Zagreus also shows him his revolver and an undated suicide letter. It sounds to me that

Zagreus is tempting Mersault to kill him. Another possibility is that Zagreus is just plain stupid, but his speech patterns and philosophizing on life seem to rule out this possibility.

Regardless of Zagreus's desires, it is possible that Mersault kills him not out of mercy but for his money, or perhaps both. Mersault does the job in a merciful way: he shoots Zagreus in the head. Mersault then puts the gun in

Zagreus's hand. Finally, Mersault takes not all of the money but almost all. He is a smart killer. If he were to take all of the money, then the police would suspect a murder masked as a suicide. But regardless of Mersault's true motives, the murder or assisted suicide bothers him. After the killing. Mersault goes home and sleeps till the middle of the afternoon.

The killing of Zagreus is intentional and planned out. The murder in The 119

Stranger is not. Meursault is being affected by the sun and heat when he shoots

the Arab. Meursault is not in his right mind. This explains the four additional

shots, shots which are clearly unnecessary. The killing of the Arab could have

been regarded as self-defense, but those four extra shots complicate the situation.

Meursault is technically found guilty of murder, although in reality he is

sentenced to death because he showed a degree of insensitivity in regard to his

mother's death. It is ironic that Mersault's premeditated act of killing is

rewarded with riches and greater freedom, and Meursault's accidental killing of

the Arab is rewarded with imprisonment and the death penalty. In Meursault. we

have an example of an innocent murderer.

There has been much discussion regarding the murder of the Arab. Alain

Robbe-Grillet points out how Meursault is. in essence, being attacked by the sun.

He pulls the trigger to '"shaJce off the sun" (71). P. Thomas says that Meursault pulls the trigger as a result of a nervous twitching, and that the four extra shots are "for further physical relief" (15). J. McCann views the first shot as a "reflex action" (53). but not so for the extra four shots. McCann believes that Meursault is responsible for these (54). For the first shot, we are told that "the trigger gave way." but for the other shots. Meursault says. "I fired." William Conroy. Jr.. explains the four extra shots differently: "These four shots constitute a catharsis for the heretofore self-contained Meursault and a demonstration of his feelings for his mother. As such, they appear to be a delayed outpouring of affection and anger that Meursault could not manifest the day of the funeral, a delayed flow of tears, so to speak" (45).

Caligula is a festival of murder. Caligula does not kill people for money, revenge, or glory, but to satisfy his own sick psychological needs. He kills the son of a patrician, and even strangles Caesonia, one of the women in his life. 120

When Caligula catches Mereia taking medicine for his asthma. Caligula suspects

that it is a poison antidote. To prove this. Caligula forces Mereia to take poison,

from which he quickly dies. It turns out that Mereia really was taking medicine

for asthma. For Caligula. Mereia's death is "nothing" (72). Even Scipion,

Mereia's son. does not seem to be as disturbed by his father's murder as one

would think. Scipion claims that he hates Caligula, but this hatred is not enough

to encourage Scipion to have his revenge against Caligula. Scipion does not

attend the meeting to plan Caligula's murder, and later refuses to participate in

the assassination altogether. Yet Scipion tells Caesonia that he wants to kill

Caligula (74). Judging from what goes on at the poetry contest. Scipion has

indeed been affected by his father's murder. After Scipion recites part of his

poem on death. Caligula interrupts him and says. "You are very young to know

the true lessons of death" (139). yet he will not participate in the murder of

Caligula, who is regarded as a brother of sorts. In his conversation with Cherea

(IV. i). Scipion says: "Something in me nevertheless resembles him. The same

flame burns in our hearts"~to which he adds: "I also suffer from what he is suffering from." His suffering is "to understand everything," i.e.. that the world

is absurd. Scipion cannot murder Caligula because Caligula is his brother in the absurd. Cherea. on the other hand, who also admits to having some Caligula in him. states that he can forget this part of himself. He organizes the assassination of Caligula, and during the actual group murder. Cherea strikes him in the face.

Murder in The Misunderstanding is not as messy or as painful to the victims. Martha and her mother drug their victims and then take them to the river to drown. The purpose of the murders is to get the victims' money.

Martha and her mother are not bothered by their despicable behavior. According to the mother: "Life is more cruel than we are. Perhaps that is why I have 121

trouble feeling guilty" (163)(37). But when her son comes to the inn, a son

whom she does not recognize consciously, her attitude changes, although she does

not know why. Subconsciously she perceives that he is her long lost son.

Although she wants to kill him. she does not want to kill him that night. Martha

also hesitates, but in the end she wants him dead. too. What is strange is that

the mother believes in God, Who does not approve of murder. Martha says to her: "Come on. Mother, and for the love of that God that you sometimes call upon, let's finish this" (219). And they do. Bui then the mother is given the passport of her victim, and learns that she has murdered her own son. She is devastated: "I have lost my freedom. It's hell that has begun" (227). This hell is such that she joins her son in death. Martha, on the other hand, is not bothered by having murdered her own brother. She says that even if she had recognized him, nothing would have changed. She still would have killed him for his money, which is ironic because Jan had sought out his long lost mother and sister to share his wealth with them.

In State of Siege, as mentioned in the previous section. Death becomes

Murder after being employed by the plague man. who represents tyranny. The murder weapon is a pencil and notebook. The notebook, a counterpart to the

Bible's Book of Life, has names of people in it. If a name is crossed out. that person dies.

The bulk of the murders in the play are of background characters who have no voice in the play. The main exception is Diego, who is killed by the plague man in exchange for Victoria's life. Another exception involves the judge's second daughter, who gets her hands on the secretary's notebook and crosses out a name. A shriek is heard coming from the judge's home, then comes the collapse of a body. We are not told who died, but earlier in the novel we learn that this 122

daughter is not very fond of her half-brother, whom she does not seem to like

because he hogs up space (PT. 255). She is also not overly fond of her mother

because of her adultery, which resulted in the birth of the half-brother. The

daughter even calls her mother, although indirectly, a bitch (PT. 256).

Regardless of whom the daughter killed, it is certain that the townsfolk are

outraged. They take the notebook away from her and cross out her name in turn.

In The Just Assassins, murder once again becomes messy—as in body parts

all over the place—although it is not as haphazard as in the plays already

discussed. The murder victim is the Grand Duke, who is blown up by a bomb

thrown by Kaliayev. The murder is deemed necessary for the good of the people.

The Grand Duke is regarded as unjust, although after the murder Kaliayev

discovers that his initial evaluation of the Duke was in error. The Duke, in fact,

was very interested in Justice for the people.

With the exception of Stepan. who says. "I hate my fellow man" (PT,

256), the terrorists are not heartless people. Upon hearing the explosion. Dora

cries, exclaiming: "We are the ones who killed him! We are the ones who killed

him! I did it" (PT, 357). She says this because she is the one who made the

bomb. But after Kaliayev's execution, she changes her tune. Now she wants to

be the next one to throw the bomb.

In the silent play The Artist's Life (PT, 2054-61), there is no murder in

the conventional sense, but it could be argued that the artist kills his wife by neglecting her. As psychologists tell us, a woman needs affection in order to feel fulfilled. The wife is ignored by her husband. Because of his peculiarity and painting, poverty also comes upon the family. The creditors come. The furniture and Jewelry are taken away. The child gets sick and is also taken away.

Finally, the wife gets sick and is confined to bed, yet the painter continues to 123

paint. After she dies, he goes to her side and cries out a silent cry. In a way,

like Tarrou and Meursauit, the artist is an innocent murderer.

In The Fall. Clamence talks about death to some extent, but not too much

specifically about murder. Among his anecdotes, there is one that stands out in

regard to murder: He talks about a man who killed his wife because she was

perfect! The husband cannot stand her because her perfections contrast with his

lack thereof. His main flaw is that he cheats on her, a flaw that he cannot stand.

But instead of bringing his flings to an end, he kills his wife instead. The man is

not in his right mind. Perhaps because of this, he can be regarded as an innocent

murderer. Clamence says that he only defends "good murderers" in court (26),

and the killer in question seems to have been one of Clamence's clients.

Among the stories in Exile and the Kingdom, two involve murder. In

"The Renegade or the Confused Mind," the renegade missionary kills a follow-up

missionary to the savages to whom the renegade had first been sent to proselytize.

Because of the torture and brainwashing done by the savages, the renegade is not

in his right mind when he kills the priest. The renegade could be said to be an

innocent murderer.

Renate Peters views the renegade differently. He is not innocent but encompasses in his person the race of Cain (520). Peters writes, "Like Cain, he

rebels against the injustice of God, which must be destroyed as the source of the supreme scandal, as the source of death..." (520). Peters points out that the renegade's desire to kill his father, who is already long dead, is a transposition.

The renegade really wants to kill the Father: God. All of this is quite interesting, but there is one problem: the renegade has not always been a renegade. At one time he seems to have been a good priest. He prays to the Lord during the course of the story, asking Him for rain. At one time, the renegade was nothing 124 like Cain. It is not until after the severe tortures, humiliations and mutilations that the renegade becomes like Cain and kills the missionary.

In "The Guest." we have an Arab who killed his cousin over a grain dispute. The crime is said to be a "crime imbecile" (97), Daru gives the Arab four opportunities to escape Justice. First. Daru goes into the back room, leaving the Arab alone in the classroom, from where he can simply walk out the door to freedom, but he does not. At night, the Arab goes outside to urinate, but then returns quietly rather than escaping. In the morning, he is at the outhouse while

Daru is indoors, but instead of escaping, the Arab brushes his teeth. And when the two individuals are to part, Daru gives the Arab two days worth of food and a thousand francs, plus shows him the path to e.xecution and the path to freedom.

Daru leaves, but after a few minutes turns around and sees that the Arab is just standing there. In time, the Arab goes to the town where he will be executed. It is as if he is a moron. This mental state is also suggested by his odd reactions to

Daru's inquiry on whether the Arab regrets the crime (93). and why he committed it (94). If the Arab is a moron, then it could be said that he is an innocent murderer because of his lack of mental gifts. The story also has a message about what could happen to those who try to help innocent murderers: when Daru returns to the school, he sees written on the blackboard: "You delivered our brother. You'll pay" (10l)(38).

Some scholars, however, view the Arab differently. According to John

McDermott, it is not stupidity that leads the Arab to his own condemnation and certain death. McDermott says that the "Arab...accepts the guilt for his crime and goes of his own volition to meet the justice of man" (J,, 6). McDermott explains this best in a second article. In essence, the Arab faces European justice out of respect for Daru. McDermott writes, "If Daru had not treated him with 125 such civility, he would have taken the road to the South, the road of undisciplined freedom" (2, 11). Laurence Perrine writes. "Responding to Daru's humane treatment, he [the Arab] feels that it would be dishonorable to violate Daru's trust" (J.. 57), so the Arab takes the road to his punishment by death. Contrary to

McDermott's interpretation, guilt is not involved. This is expressed in a second article by Perrine. one written in response to McDermott's first article. Perrine says. "If he [the Arab] takes the road toward French Justice rather than toward his own people at the end. it is because he is submissive and unimaginative, not because he 'accepts the guilt for his crime' and accepts 'the justice of men'" (2,

12).

Eberhard Griem focuses on the murder and makes the case that a crime did not really take place. The cousin, by his actions, brought "a severe injury to the family honor" (96) and thus deserved punishment. Griem suggests that the Arab, in killing his cousin, "was merely acting in accordance with his own tribal custom" (96). Griem does back up his speculation with sources of an anthropological nature. The Arab, apparently, was not out of line in killing his cousin because of a grain dispute—at least from a cultural perspective. Griem also shows that the words the Arab and Daru exchange do not show the Arab to be a moron, but rather that he, the Arab, is bewildered by Daru's questions.

Griem also says. "The fact that he [the Arab] chooses to face his trial is perfectly consistent with the notion, presumably a part of his cultural identity, that one cannot run away from an accusation without losing one's honor" (97).

Nathan Cervo has yet another interpretation of the Arab. Cervo calls the

Arab a "Christlike Arab" and says that "the Arab may be viewed as a kind of

Bonus Pastor (Good Shepherd) who has killed a wolf...threatening his sheep"

(222). Cervo points out that the Arab used a sheephook as a weapon, which is 126

what a shepherd might use to kill a wolf. This interpretation is "in keeping with

Camus's prevailing dialectic, involving Roman Catholicism. Marxism, and

Gnosticism " (222).

So whose interpretation is correct? The answer might come from

contemplating Camus's literary thematic patterns: He is not concerned about

people accepting guilt or blindly pursuing honor, nor is he concerned about giving

anthropology lessons. And regarding Cervo's view. well. Christ would not go

around killing His cousin, and Camus would know this. However. Camus is concerned about innocent murderers. A dumb Arab fits this picture.

In The First Man, there is a range of attitudes regarding murder. A trivial attitude toward murder can be seen in the scene where Jacques and his friends are swimming in the sea and challenging one another to lasting the longest underwater. There is a footnote to this scene in which Camus anticipates adding the words of one of the characters: "If you drown yourself, your mother will kill you" (54). Later in the novel, however, the other end of the murder spectrum is revealed. Camus mentions how a certain pregnant European woman was temporarily left alone on the side of the road. She was later found with her belly cut open and her breasts cut off, presumably by Arabs. Veillard seems to justify the act by underlining that there was a war going on. The old doctor suggests that it was part of an old cycle of murder going all the way back to Cain. The woman might not have been killed if the Europeans had not first castrated certain

Berbers. The doctor also says. "Men are frightful, especially under the ferocious sun" (177). Here, as in The Stranger, we see the sun and its heat implicated in murder. But one can hardly fully blame the sun for what the Arabs did to the pregnant woman. It is not a Meursault-style murder. The Arabs were fully conscious of what they were doing. The sun's influence is not enough to make 127 them innocent murderers.

For added information on The First Man, an unfinished novel, I shall permit myself to resort to one of Camus's notebook entries, an entry clearly designated as being on the novel in question. Part of the entry is on a different kind of murder: murder to avoid the humiliation of a loved one. We read: "He

[an adult Jacques?] fights for the Arab cause. He is caught in an anti-French riot with his wife. He kills her to keep her from being raped, but he survives the riot. He judged and condemned" (3C, 154). The entry continues with further possible inclusions into the novel, one of which is: "Or still: for 20 years I have fought for them, and on the day of their liberation, they killed my mother." Let us note that this situation has similarities with the one in "The Guest": Daru is mindful of and tries to protect the Arab, yet will be punished for it. Doing what is apparently right is not always accordingly rewarded. Camus himself probably feared unwarranted retribution because of his position of compromise in the

French-Algerian conflict. This position of compromise was. in Camus's mind, best for the Arabs, yet the Arabs could not see this and were not too fond of

Camus for not fully supporting them and fully rejecting the French government.

Before leaving this section. I would like to briefly examine the group effort play Revolt in the Asturias. which has a couple of noteworthy murders committed by rebels. One of the murders is of a priest who is taken out of his hospital bed and killed. The other murder is committed by Sanchez, who kills a grocer for refusing to hand over his goods for the good of the revolution against the Spanish government. It would seem that the revolutionaries are worse than their enemy, the Spanish government. I should point out that the murder of the priest is in a section of the play that Camus definitely did not write, and the murder of the grocer is in a section that Camus perhaps did not write either. If I 128

mention the murders at all. it is because Camus approved of their inclusion into

the play, since he was the organizer of the work. The message of these murders

is: "Yes. revolt against injustice, but don't become unjust yourself in the

process."

*

Indirectly. Camus also engaged in murder as part of his involvement in the

Resistance. He participated in violence not because he liked it, but because he

hated violence less than institutions of violence, such as the concentration camps

(PE, 356). In his notebooks, he writes: "Revolt. The absurd supposes the

absence of choice. To live is to choose. To choose is to kill. The objection to

the absurd is murder" (2C, 280). The German occupation of France was in the

domain of the absurd. To object to it meant murder. But Camus sets limits on

murder. It was the example of Kaliayev, a real person in addition to being a

character in The Just Assassins, that led Camus to conclude that one could not

kill unless one were willing to die oneself (PE, 747). In his notebooks, he

writes. "Every murder, in order to be justified, needs to be balanced with love.

The scaffold, for terrorists, is the proof times nine of love" (2C. 294).

It is maybe worth noting that Camus uses the concept of murder in a

metaphorical fashion, too. He makes statements such as: "At the limit, to love someone is to kill everyone else" (2C. 253); "I have tried with all my strength,

knowing my weaknesses, to be a man of morality. Morality kills" (2C, 254):

"Property is murder" (3C. 64): "That man there is like my brother, and in my family, he who touches my brother is dead" (3C. 244). Such statements add to

Camus's considerable interest in murder. Murder is everywhere, even in God:

"He who is right is he who has never killed. This [person] can therefore not be

God" (V42)(39). 129

2.8.- Execution

Camus was particularly interested in a certain form of murder: official

murder, i.e.. execution. In The Plague, the theme of execution is primarily associated with Tarrou and his father. As a child. Tarrou once went with his father to listen to him prosecute a case against a murderer. The accused was poor and had red hair. He had the appearance of an owl alarmed by an overly bright light. Tarrou says that he believed that the accused was indeed a murderer. Tarrou recalls his father saying. "This head must fall," and eventually the head did fall. Tarrou points out that his father did not perform the actual task of obtaining the head. The implication is that his father would not be so enthusiastic about failing heads if he were to do the actual dirty work of releasing the guillotine blade and dealing with the head in the basket. Tarrou's father was so enthusiastic about executions that he would get up extra early in order not to miss them. Tarrou later reveals that getting to witness an execution is usually done by invitation. Executions are not open to the general public. Tarrou is implying that if they were, public opinion would swing enormously against the death penalty, and as a result, the death penalty would no longer be.

Tarrou tells us that he went on a campaign against executions but found himself approving of certain ones. This ambivalence came to an end after he witnessed an execution himself. He describes death by firing squad in Hungary; the condemned individual is but a meter and a half from the riflemen, who aim at the heart, fire, and leave a hole large enough for a fist to fit into. It is not a pretty sight. Tarrou comments that these details are not spoken of; otherwise, such executions would not take place. Because of what he has seen, he adopts the opinion that executions should not be permitted for any reason, regardless of 130

circumstances.

Because of the increase in illegal behavior as the result of the plague, city

officials feel that they have to be more stern. As a result, they execute two

burglars—not murderers—but Rieux tells us that this probably had little effect on

the people because of how those two deaths compared with numerous ones caused

by the plague.

Potential capital punishment can be seen in how city officials consider

using prisoners for some of the more unpleasant tasks associated with the plague,

such as dealing with the bodies. When Rieux informs Tarrou of this. Tarrou says

that he would prefer that free men do the work, since he is horrified by death

penalties (118).

To an extent, and because of the plague. Rieux feels that he is somewhat

of an executioner—although not literally. We read that "his role was no longer to

cure. His role was to diagnose. Discover, see, describe, register, and then

condemn was his task" (175-76){40). Before the plague, we are told that "one

received him as a savior" (176), but after the scourge's arrival, he would show up

at people's homes escorted by soldiers in order to force infected families to open

up their doors.

*

Execution is a theme from Camus's earliest works. In "Between Yes and

No" (The Two Sides of the Coin), we read: "May we not be told of the one on

death row: 'He's going to pay his debt to society,' but rather: 'He's going to have

his neck cut.' This seems like nothing, but there's a slight difference" (PE, 30).

Camus is telling us that execution is shrouded in euphemisms in order to make it

more acceptable. He would like this practice to stop so that people will clearly see what an execution entails. 131

In the preface of the American university edition of The Stranger. Camus

writes. "In our society, any man who does not cry at the burial of his mother

risks being condemned to death" (PT, 1928). This, in essence, is what happens

in the novel, and what can happen to anyone who does not conform to the culture

of a given society. The Stranger also attests to how lightly society regards

execution, that it would actually kill a man for being insensitive toward his

mother. But the novel does show us another side of official murder: Meursault

tells us a story about his father, about how he had gone to witness an execution of an assassin; the sight was such that Meursault's father vomited a good part of

that morning (167-68). Although the assassin was a rather despicable person, his own death was not much different: it. too. was despicable. After reflecting on

his father's experience, Meursault comes to realize that there is nothing more

important than an execution. Meursault promises himself that if ever he gets out of prison, he will go to all the executions (168).

His own potential execution influences him in yet a more personal fashion.

C. Hurley puts it this way: "Meursault, though always quietly appreciative of sensual pleasures, comes, only under sentence of death, to be filled with the joy and the vigor of life" (162). Potential execution makes him more aware of life.

In The Misunderstanding, the theme of execution is briefly touched upon by the mother. What she says is enlightening regarding society's attitude toward the death penalty: "I suppose that there is a time when all murderers are like me: emptied from the inside, sterile, without possibility of a future. It's because of this that they are done away with: they are good for nothing" (227).

In The Just Assassins, the murder of the Grand Duke can be regarded as an execution for the crime of tyranny, even though he seems to be a good fellow.

His literally losing his head in the explosion suggests death by guillotine; 132

however, Richard Geha believes that "the murder and decapitation of the Grand

Duke strongly—to put it mildly—suggests death by castration" (121). Geha sees

an oedipal struggle in much of Camus's work, which strikes me as odd because

Camus's father died when Camus was less than a year old, and had gone off to

war, thus out of Camus's life, earlier still.

In the play, state-sponsored executions are done by hanging. We even

become acquainted with the executioner; Foka. He is a prisoner, having killed three men himself. For every man he hangs, he has a year taken off his sentence. He has already hanged two men. However. Kaliayev, who has killed but one man. will face the rope if he does not provide the names of the other terrorists. Life is used as a bargaining chip. In a way. Kaliayev does bargain, but not in the fashion that the chief of police would like. The several lives of his friends, which includes his lover, Dora, are of greater value than his one life.

Kaliayev is hanged at two in the morning. This detail is provided to show how the government tries to hide the unpleasantness of the death penalty, even though hanging is not as messy as what the guillotine or the firing squad does.

At two o'clock in the morning, there are not too many spectators.

In The Fall, there is an execution that is discussed in a less than serious manner: Christ's. Clamence tells us that Christ was crucified because He was not entirely innocent: He was responsible for the deaths of the Innocents. Of course, this is not true. Camus is going a little overboard in his humor. But apart from this passage. Camus almost has a no-nonsense attitude toward the death penalty.

In The First Man, we are told about how Jacques's father got up extra early—at three in the morning—to witness an execution via guillotine. Like

Meursault's father. Jacques's father got sick because of it and started vomiting.

This happened to him even though the condemned man's crime apparently merited 133

the punishment of death. The condemned man, an agricultural worker named

Pirette, killed his employers and their three children with a hammer. The

youngest child, before dying, and with his own blood, wrote Pirette's name on a

wall. There was such indignation because of the murders that a considerable

crowd gathered to see Pirette lose his head. We are not told whether or not those

witnessing the execution got sick as did Jacques's father, but we are told that

Jacques himself began having semi-recurrent nightmares in which people were searching for him in order to execute him. In Jacques's case, a boy. the mere description of an execution was enough to affect him.

*

Camus was interested in an international order. This order would have a

"code of international Justice whose first article would be the general abolition of the death penalty" (PE. 348). In his essay "Reflections on the Guillotine," Camus shares with his readers one of the few things he knew about his father, namely how his father had attended the execution of a man who had killed an entire family, even the children. Camus's father felt that execution was not punishment enough, but despite this, he got sick and began to vomit.

Later in the essay. Camus mentions how journalists discuss death penalties with euphemisms. Camus suggests that the guillotine be shown and that people be made to hear the head fall into the basket. He argues that if chopping off heads is to intimidate criminals, then the heads have to be shown. Camus, of course, is speaking tongue in cheek. Executions do not significantly deter criminals. Camus mentions that at the turn of the century, in England, out of

270 people who were hanged, 170 had previously attended one or two e.xecutions.

He adds that at the Bristol prison, in 1886, out of 167 people condemned to death, 164 had witnessed at least one execution. He further adds: "Within the 134

thirty-three nations that have done away with the death penalty.... the number of

murders, in short, did not increase" fPE. 1034). Camus calls the death penalty

"the most premeditated of murders" (PE. 1039). Camus also says that the fear

the condemned person feels for months or even years is worse than death. The

condemned person is made to suffer two deaths, even though she/he has killed but

once. Camus also brings into the picture the suffering of the condemned person's

relatives, who have committed no crime. Alcohol, Camus says, has had a part in

crimes. Some murderers are innocent murderers, and thus do not deserve to be

executed.

The death penalty also involves irreversibility. Camus mentions that

Belgium abolished the death penalty after the execution of an innocent man. A

substitute for execution would be forced labor, Camus suggests. The forced labor

would be for life for those criminals who cannot have their ways corrected;

otherwise, imprisonment would be temporary. "May Cain not be killed," Camus says, "but that he maintain in the sight of men a sign of reprobation" (PE. 1063).

The death penalty is discussed in Camus's notebooks. There is an entry on Mersault wanting to write his story of being on death row (iC, 24-25). The

passage never made it into The Happv Death, perhaps because Camus decided

that The Stranger would be precisely such a story—let us remember that Camus abandoned The Happy Death in order to write The Stranger.

Camus's notebooks also contain a possible early passage for an alternate ending to The Stranger, an ending in which Meursault is actually executed (IC,

49-50). According to this ending, Meursault dies without a word, and with tears in this eyes. [Interesting note: After Camus's death. The Stranger was made into a movie in which Meursault is executed. When Francine, Camus's widow, saw a preview of it, she protested, since Meursault is not executed in the novel. The 135 scene was taken out.J

Camus's notebooks also reveal literary projects, or parts thereof, involving execution. A short story Camus had in mind would have been about a man who promises to give his life for a revolution but ends up saving the lives of his adversaries instead (2C. 120). A tribunal consisting of members of his party condemn them to death. The man helps them escape. In the end, the man is executed. And as part of a project for a novel, Camus writes, "When the evening soup was late, it meant that the following morning was a morning of execution"

(2C, 171). But despite all the somberness surrounding the death penalty, Camus did take the opportunity to make the following lighthearted entry: "On the scaffold, Madame du Barry: 'One more minute. Mr. E."

2.9.- Suicide

Camus acknowledges two basic kinds of suicide: physical suicide and

philosophical suicide (The Myth of Sisyphus). Each suicide corresponds to one

of the two fundamental elements of the absurd: the person and the world, both of

which are needed for the absurd. Physical suicide is when we get rid of the

person: philosophical suicide is when we ignore or negate the world, which in

turn can be done by adopting a religion or false beliefs. Philosophical suicide is

what I have been calling existential separation, which I feel is a more descriptive

term of the concept in question. In this section. I shall deal only with physical

suicide.

In The Plague, near the beginning of the novel, we learn of Cottard's

suicide attempt. He had written with red chalk on his door: "Enter, I'm hanging"

(24). Grand enters and gets him out of the noose still alive. At first. Grand

thinks it is all a joke, but it is no joke. Cottard is in pretty bad shape. In this

section of the novel, the reader feels compassion for Cottard, a troubled soul, but

later in the narration, we learn that he is indeed a troubled soul but in quite a

different way. Even before the plague, Cottard had been engaging in dirty

dealings and had been told by the police to remain available until the end of an

inquiry involving him. He faced possible forced labor, or prison if lucky. He

acknowledges that his hanging himself was an attempt at keeping himself out of

jail (147). We are not given any further explanation. The reader is perhaps expected to assume that Cottard will get off the hook by virtue of mental illness.

His insanity at the end of the novel may in fact be entirely fake--a further attempt

to stay out of jail. There is a passage of considerable length in which Cottard is setting up character witnesses for himself. Prior to the fake suicide, Cottard had 137

been of the solitary sort (55). After the attempt, he hangs around people. He

gives big tips at a certain cafe. He tells Grand, "He's a good waiter. He can

testify [i.e.. as a character witness]" (56). Cottard also tries to get Grand as a

character witness: Cottard had been sending his sister a hundred francs every

month, but at a particular moment, after learning that Grand would be going to

the post office, Cottard asks him to deliver for him two hundred francs for the sister. Cottard's pursuit of character witnesses is a continuation of his fake suicide.

Suicide comes again into the picture when we get to Tarrou, but this time

it is only a threat of suicide. On one occasion when Tarrou's father asked for his alarm clock so that he could get up extra early to attend an execution, the young

Tarrou could not sleep. His distress was such that he left the family nest. When

he was found, he told his father that he would kill himself if forced to return

home. Tarrou was apparently disturbed enough that his father believed him, and therefore backed off.

Considering the circumstances presented in The Plague, suicide seems strangely lacking. In Defoe's account of the plague in London, infected people, draped in blankets or rugs, would throw themselves into the mass graves. In

Camus's plague account, people seem quite content to wait until after death

before ending up in the grave. The lack of suicide in The Plague may have something to do with Camus's belief that suicide must not be a response to the absurd. The proper reaction should be revolt. Since The Plague is a novel about revolt, it is understandable why actual suicide is avoided.

»

Suicide is to be found in Camus's other works of fiction. In regard to The

Happv Death, as I already discussed in section 2.7, it is not perfectly clear 138

whether Zagreus's death is an assisted suicide or a murder. The internal evidence points toward the former. I have presented some of this evidence in section 2.7.

There is. however, additional evidence that I did not get around to that supports the assisted suicide view. On the day of Zagreus's death, his door is unlocked.

Mersault does not sneak in but knocks before entering. Zagreus shows no surprise: in fact. Mersault and Zagreus do not exchange a single word during the encounter. Mersault even lights a cigarette. He goes to the money bo.x, takes the revolver and reads Zagreus's suicide letter, a letter which in part requests that some of his money go to improve conditions of those on death row. It is as if

Zagreus were taking measures to improve his killer's lot if caught! Even when

Mersault puts the revolver against his victim's right temple. Zagreus does not say a word. His eyes fill with tears before Mersault pulls the trigger. It is also worth noting that the accompanying descriptions of nature are not somber but glad. We read that "behind the windows, the morning laughed " (26). We also read about a "great icy joy" (26). After the killing, we read: "In this lighting up of the air and this fertility of the sky. it seemed that the sole task of men was to live and be happy" (29). Such descriptions suggest that Zagreus's death was a fulfilling occasion.

In Camus's notebooks, there is a certain passage that seems to be about

Mersault. According to this passage, he kills himself after an "insignificant incident: one of his friends talks to him in an inattentive manner" (IC, 34)(41).

In the novel, he does not commit suicide, but then again, the novel is unfinished.

In the preface to the American edition of his theater. Camus writes.

"Caligula is the story of a superior suicide" (PT. 1730). even though Caligula does not literally commit suicide. He is killed by several of his subjects. Camus explains: "Unfaithful toward man as the result of faithfulness toward himself. 139

Caligula consents to dying for having understood that no person can save himself

all by himself and that no person can be free at the expense of other men" (PT.

1730). It could be said that the story of Caligula is one of assisted suicide. He could have prevented his assassination if he had wanted to. He knew who was

behind it and was even presented with the details, but he ignored them. It is as if he wanted to die. Caligula's death, like Zagreus's. can be regarded as both a

murder and a suicide.

A similar kind of bipolar death can be seen in the case of Cassius. the third patrician. In the ninth scene of the fourth act, Caligula is said to have a stomach ailment. He is vomiting blood. Cassius tells Jupiter to take his life instead of Caligula's. Caligula hears this and is all of a sudden better—if indeed he was really sick to begin with. Caligula demands that Cassius give his life.

He is taken away to his death, under protest. In a way. his death is a suicide, since he made a deal to give his life in e.xchange for Caligula's. But because he eventually protests his upcoming death, resisting and screaming, it is more likely a murder.

The story behind The Misunderstanding appeared in the newspaper on

January 5. 1935. According to the article, the mother hanged herself and the daughter threw herself into a well. In Camus's highly elaborated theatrical version of the presumably true event, the mother kills herself in the same way she killed her son: by drowning in the river—not by hanging. The daughter, on the other hand, kills herself in her room—not at the bottom of a well. The mother clearly e.xpresses her reasons for death: "When a mother is no longer capable of recognizing her son, it's because her role on earth has come to an end" (226).

The daughter, who is quite attached to her mother, kills herself because of her mother's suicide. The daughter mentions that no one had ever kissed her mouth 140

or seen her without clothes. The daughter had also rejected God. Without the

mother, the daughter has no one. Her suicide is a suicide of solitude.

In State of Siege. Nada commits suicide by throwing himself into the sea, saying, "Good-bye, brave people. You'll learn one day that you can't live well

knowing that man is nothing and that the face of God is frightful" (300). A fisherman immediately counters this statement by referring to Nada's "lying

mouth." Nada is wrong: Man is indeed something, even if sometimes he is not much, plus God's face is probably not frightful. Camus also contemplated having a Minister of Suicide as a character in the play (3C, 79).

In The Fall, suicide is presented in both a lighthearted and serious fashion.

Clamence says; "They [men) always believe that people commit suicide for a reason. But people can very well commit suicide for two reasons" (89)—in

Camus's notebooks, a passage like this one has the word two emphasized (2C,

143). We also learn that Clamence wanted to punish his friends by committing suicide, but then realized that he had no friends, only accomplices. Clamence is probably joking or lying. He admits that there are lies in his confession. But what does not seem to be a lie is the account of the young women who jumped into the Seine and whom Clamence did not save out of cowardice. It is this act, combined with the laugh-behind-his-back incident, that changed his life.

It is worth noting that the young woman's suicide may not have been a voluntary suicide in the end. The fact that she screamed repeatedly suggests that she might have changed her mind at the last moment. If she had truly wanted to die, she would have remained calm and quiet.

Clamence also tells us about a different young woman, who killed herself in order to punish her father, who had prevented her from marrying a man who was too well-combed. We are told that the father was not really punished at all 141 because he liked fishing too much! He easily forgot his daughter. Clamence sums up the suicide-to-punish practice in the following phrase: "You think you're dying in order to punish your wife, but you're [really] giving her freedom" (89)

(42).

Regarding Camus's last work. The First Man, suicide appears in the notes section of the published version. There is a statement that Jacques's friend- probably Pierre—kills himself for the sake of Europe (285). A subsequent note reads, "J. wants not to be" (297), where the i most certainly represents Jacques.

What precedes and follows the note suggests that Jacques is distressed as the result of his political activities. According to an entry in Camus's notebooks,

Jacques ends up believing that he can do anything because he has decided to kill himself. He will use cyanide. He joins the resistance movement. On the day he is to use the cyanide, "he deprives himself of it" (3C, 100—emphasis is by

Camus). This suggests that Jacques gave the cyanide to someone else so that this person would have a less painful death. [I am reminded of a scene in The

Human Condition (La Condition humaine). by Andre Malrau.x. pp. 306-309.1

*

In The Myth of Sisvphus. Camus writes, "There's but one truly serious philosophical problem: it's suicide. To judge that life is worth or not worth the trouble of being lived is to respond to the fundamental question of philosophy"

(15). A few pages later. Camus adds: "To die voluntarily supposes that one has recognized...the absence of any profound reason for living...and the uselessness of suffering" (18). He further adds: "One kills oneself because life is not worth living—behold without a doubt a truth..." (21). However, to commit suicide is to submit to the absurd. Since we are to fight the absurd, to revolt against it, suicide should be avoided despite its temptations. And its temptations Camus 142

understood well. He writes in this notebooks: "Suicide of A. Upset because I

loved him a lot. of course, but also because I suddenly understood that I wanted to do as he did" {2C. 322). Also, one of his two "favorite dreams" is about his shooting himself in the head (3C. 35-36).

The notion of suicide as a temptation can be seen in Camus's travel journal. He notes that he spoke with the Spanish philosopher Jose Bergamin. who said: "My deepest temptation is suicide. And spectacular suicide" {VI38). Yet the temptations of suicide are not always pleasant, as Camus observes: "Twice, the notion of suicide. The second time, still while watching the sea. a frightful burning sensation comes to me at my temples. I believe that I now understand how one kills oneself" (V58—emphasis his).

Camus's notebooks have what might be called suicide reports. He recounts how the woman who lived on the floor above threw herself onto the building's courtyard. She was thirty-one. A tenant said that it was enough time to live.

Much later. Camus records that he received a letter from an American woman, a letter in which she announces her suicide (3C. 14). Camus also records two historical suicides: "The two very great minds that heaven provided as a gift to the Romans. Lucretius and Seneca, committed suicide" (3C. 200). He later writes that he received a letter in which he is asked to intervene to prevent a suicide. He feels no responsibility to do so. He feels as if it is an ambush, but precisely because of this, he feels he must intervene.

Camus also had certain literary projects in mind involving suicide, projects he never got around to writing. He mentions a project for a novel about an individual who decides to commit suicide in one year (2C, 124). The Corrected

Creation would have been on the history of term suicide (2C. 131-33). Camus also contemplated a short story project about the anguish of death, and how a 143 man commits suicide presumably because of this anguish (2C. 343)! There is also an entry on what could be an idea for a literary work, although this entry is not specifically designated as such, as is usually the case. It is about an elderly lady who kills herself because no one visits her. She writes the same thing in her diary every day: "Today, no one came" (3C. 206).

It is worth noting that in certain nonfiction pieces, Camus associates suicide with other forms of death. In The Myth of Sisvphus: "The opposite of the suicide victim is the person on death row" (77-78). However, in "Reflections on the Guillotine," Camus says that the condemned person should be given the opportunity to commit suicide via a drug, thus equalizing formal execution and suicide (PE, 1064).

In The Rebel. Camus associates suicide with yet another form of death- murder: "Suicide and murder are here two faces of a same order." He continues:

"If you refuse your reasons for suicide, it's not possible to have any for murder.

You can't be a nihilist halfway" (PE, 4I7)(43).

Although Camus is quite serious about suicide, he is not always so:

"There's yet to choose the most esthetic suicide: marriage + 40 hours, or the revolver" (IC. 89)! 144

Chapter 3: Victims

There are all sorts of victims in Camus's writings: rats, cats. dogs, and

people of various professions and backgrounds (businesspersons, housewives.

barrel makers, teachers, an engineer, patricians, an emperor, a philosopher,

miners, terrorists,... Some of these are also aggressors. I previously mentioned

that Grandma is a victim of poverty and is also a tyrant (an aggressor). Let us

remember, as Tarrou discussed, that it is possible to be on the side of scourges or on the side of victims. It seems that it is also possible to be on both sides at the same time. In any event, there are certain categories of victims (or

victims/aggressors) who appear repeatedly in Camus's writings. These categories are the ones I shall examine in this chapter.

3.1.- Children

Although children are not the most common victims in Camus's works. they are nevertheless the ones closest to the hearts of readers. In The Plague, the climax of the novel is the suffering and death of the Othon child. The child's agony is described extensively and so much so that it is obvious that Camus is trying to make a point. The description goes on for several pages. We are told that the men follow the child's suffering "minute by minute" (195). The injustice of this suffering is underlined by repeated references to the child being innocent.

The child is even associated with the Innocent One when we read: "In the devastated bed. the child struck a pose of a grotesque victim of crucifixion"

(195). Because of the serum, the child is able to resist longer than usual, and 145

therefore, suffers more. Paneloux says. "If it is for him to die. he will have

suffered longer" (196)(44). At one point, the child lets out a single continuous

cry. Paneloux falls to his knees and prays. "My God. save this child" (197). but

the child continues to cry out. The child dies with his mouth open, i.e.. his last

cry is preserved. He also dies with tears on his face.

Rieux is convinced that the boy is innocent, that his suffering is unjust.

Rieu.x's atheism is further reinforced as a result of such apparent injustice. If

God is all-powerful and good, then children, who are supposedly innocent, should

not suffer. Since children do suffer, this implies that there is either no God or

God is either not all-powerful or not good—or both. People have been reasoning

about God in this fashion for centuries, and as a result, God's image has been

tarnished. But the problem with the above reasoning is that one of the premises

is false. Children are not necessarily innocent. Rieux thinks that the Othon child

is innocent, but he hardly knows him! There are no indications that the two spent

time together before the child became infected. And after the onset of the

illness, the child does not seem to have been communicative so as to allow Rieux

to get to know him better. Rieux is a.ssuming that the child is innocent, perhaps

based on an innocent appearance.

Based on my own observations, children have many times more character

flaws than do adults, with the main flaw being self-centeredness. which in turn often manifests itself as cruelty. Being self-centered—or puffed up, as the Bible

would put it—is a major sin, the very first sin, the sin responsible for Satan's fall.

Othon's son is about nine years old. It is unlikely for a child that old to be innocent. This assumption is in line with how children in Camus's other fiction are portrayed. As we shall see. they can hardly be called innocent. However, the Bible itself has passages in which innocent people die. people who are 146

specifically qualified as being innocent, including children. There are biblical

passages in which even animals are made to suffer unnecessarily for sins committed by their owners. Of course, theologians have offered explanations.

Anyone who has regularly attended religious services has probably heard some of these explanations. They range from the simple "God can do whatever he wants." to eugenics, and even to explanations that seem to come out of science fiction novels. What matters is that none of the explanations are totally satisfactory.

Camus may have had good reason for being outraged at the suffering of children.

*

In Camus's other works of fiction, children are regarded differently.

Children are not always innocent. In fact, they can be downright wicked. In

State of Siege. Nada says, "And children, that dirty brood!" (237). Although

Nada is a character whose opinions are generally meant to be disregarded, his above statement is true at least in regard to the Judge's younger daughter. When the wife of the Judge asks for pity from her husband regarding her adultery, the daughter exclaims: "Pity for bitches!" (256)—she is calling her mother a bitch.

And when the daughter gets her hands on the secretary's notebook, she crosses out a name, thus killing the owner of the name. The daughter is a murderer.

In contrast to the daughter is her half-brother, the fruit of her mother's adultery. The mother says regarding her illegitimate son: "And a single one of the hairs on this child is more precious to me than heaven itself" (255). There is little else revealed about this son, but it seems clear that he is an individual of higher quality than his half-sister, even though she is a legitimate daughter.

In The Ju.st Assassins, the presumed innocence of children is a concept that is encountered again, as in The Plague, but their lack of innocence is also presented. The bomb is not thrown because of the presence of children in the 147

Duke's carriage. If the children are present at the second attempt, once again the

bomb will not be thrown. Kaliayev says. "To kill children is against honor"

(340): however, Stepan disagrees, explaining that thousands of children will die

of hunger because the Duke and the two children were not killed. Stepan, in fact,

may not have an opinion on whether or not children are innocent. He is what

Jack Moore calls a totalist. Moore explains; "For the totalist what is not good is

bad, what is not in is out. Justice is clear: what must be done in order to achieve

justice is just: if a political goal is worthy, whatever needs doing to arrive at the goal is worthy" (54). Moore further says that Stepan "does not ponder the

Tightness or wrongness of killing two children in order to assassinate the Grand

Duke: he does not agonize over moral decisions once his primary commitment to revolution has been determined. After that, what terror must be performed is

just" (54-55).

The Grand Duchess herself does not regard children as innocent. During her conversation with her husband's assassin, she reveals that her niece "has a wicked heart" (373). We learn that she does not like to give alms to the poor because she is afraid to touch them. On the other hand, the Grand Duke likes the peasants and drinks with them. The Grand Duchess specifically says that her niece is unjust (373).

The First Man, which deals considerably with Jacques's childhood, fails to portray children as innocent. Although much of Jacques's lack of innocence is imposed on him by his tyrannical grandmother, he is less than innocent by his own account, too. For example, in order to have money to go to a soccer game, he lies to his grandmother, telling her that a two-franc coin that he was supposed to give to her has fallen into the hole of the outhouse (86). We later learn that

Jacques also has a fondness for vulgarities (190), which is not a typical 148

characteristic of the innocent. However, an element of innocence is added onto

children when Camus writes: "In and of himself, a child is nothing: his parents

are the ones who represent him. It is by them that he defines himself, that he is

defined in the eyes of the world" (187).

We see an evolution in Camus's attitude toward children. Prior to The

Plague, children barely make an appearance in his fiction, and are treated only in

passing. It is with The Plague that Camus concentrates to a blatantly noticeable extent on children, perhaps because his own children. Catherine and Jean, both born September 5. 1945, came into his life at around the time he was perhaps finishing off the chapter containing the account of the Othon child's suffering and death. It is also worth noting that about a month prior, atomic bombs fell on

Japan, an event that affected Camus emotionally and intellectually. He most certainly knew that countless "innocent" Japanese children died in the attacks on

Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But in his later works of fiction, Camus is not as adamant concerning the innocence of children. He creates child characters who are clearly deserving of chastisement.

*

In his nonfiction, however. Camus tends to lean toward the view that children are basically innocent, and therefore not deserving of punishment or death. At a conference at a convent, Camus e.xpressed that he would "continue to fight against this universe of ours in which children suffer and die" (PE, 372). In an interview, he says, "There is the death of children, which denotes divine arbitrariness; but there is also the murder of children, which translates human arbitrariness" (PE, 380). In The Rebel. Camus is quite pessimistic when he says.

"Children will always die unjustly, even in a perfect society" (PE, 706). Earlier 149

in the essay. Camus elaborates on the suffering of children: "It is not the child's

suffering that is revolting in itself, but the fact that this suffering is not justified"

(PE, 509). Once again, we see children regarded as being innocent, as not being

deserving of punishment, even punishment from God.

Camus's notebooks do not have much on children. He rarely even

mentions his own children, but there is an entry that clearly shows that children are conscious of doing harm, thus separating themselves from innocence. The entry is on his son, Jean. After going fishing for the first time, he breaks down into tears at the sight of the agony of the fish he caught (3C. 190). He no longer wants to fish. Jean realizes that he has inflicted this agony upon the fish.

Although he might have been innocent prior to going fishing, since he was not fully conscious of the future consequences of his actions, after the excursion, however, he realizes that he is capable of evil, and perhaps views himself as evil.

Although children may continue to suffer and die. whether Justly or unjustly, it is possible to make matters better for them. One of Camus's favorable impressions of the United States comes from how Americans treat their children. During his trip to the U.S., he was shown a public library that had a large room for children. Camus remarks: "Finally a country where people truly attend to [the needs of] children" (V35)(45). The presupposition is that other countries can do likewise or even better. 150

3.2.- Artists

Artists, in the general sense, are the most common victims in Camus's fiction. Among artists, writers are the ones who predominate by far. Since

Camus was himself a writer, an actor and a stage director, his fascination with the writing profession and the arts in general is understandable.

In The Plague, several artists make an appearance. There is a brief mention of an opera company that performed for quite a while until the plague struck down one of its singers as he performed, but there is no elaboration on the art as one would find, for example, in the writings of Rousseau. The company is mentioned merely in passing.

But much more attention is paid to the four writers in the novel: Rambert.

Tarrou. Grand and Rieux. It is uncanny that four main characters within one novel would all have such an artistic inclination in common. Irene Finel-

Honigman sees in these characters more than just writers. She sees in them

Camus's interest in the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. the subject of the opera performed in the novel. Finel-Honigman writes, "The novel's four male protagonists. Rieux. Rambert, Tarrou, and Grand symbolize Orpheus the guide and seer, Orpheus the lover, and Orpheus the poet. [...] ...each must carry on his personal search for communication while existing in the hell of the plague"

(208).

Rambert is a journalist sent to Oran from Paris to investigate the living conditions of the Arabs. He is particularly interested in their sanitary conditions, which Rieux tells him are not good. The fact that Rambert would travel so far to investigate such a matter reveals that he is serious about his profession and that he is probably an excellent journalist: otherwise, the Paris newspaper would not 151

have put the tab for his trip to a different continent. Although we learn much about Rambert over the course of the novel, we are told virtually nothing about how he goes about practicing his craft. The only elaboration—and not much of it—pertains to truth, to whether or not he can report it. Of course, he says that he can. When asked whether or not he is capable of expressing total condemnation, he has the honesty to say that he cannot, since such a condemnation would be without basis. His honesty is also seen in how he does not hide from his new friends his illegal attempt at evasion, an attempt he does not engage in until after exhausting all legal avenues. In the end. he honorably remains in Oran. even though arrangements had already been made for his flight. In summary. Rambert is a relatively respectable journalist. This is noteworthy because Camus generally did not like journalists, even though he was one himself. Camus's main complaint against journalists was that they twisted the truth or told outright lies.

Rambert is perhaps being put forth as a model of what a journalist should at least try to be. someone who can tell the truth and avoid total condemnation either one way or the other.

Tarrou also engages in writing, and in particular, a diary. He is thus an amateur writer. He is also an amateur philosopher. He is the one who says that the world consists of scourges and victims, and that there is a third domain, the one of true doctors, who in turn refer to true friends and peace.

Tarrou's diary is one of Rieux's sources in writing up the chronicle of the plague in Oran. The anecdote about the man who uses cats for salivary target practice comes from Tarrou. as does a degree of information pertaining to

Cottard. Like Rambert. and more so. Tarrou is interested in truth. His escape from home and his subsequent travels have as a goal to make people aware of the truth regarding the death penalty. He deeply cares about people, including guilty 152

people condemned to death. He is Rieux's right-hand man in the fight against the

plague, a fight which is difficult and tiring. It affects his writing: As the death

toll drops, we are told that Tarrou's writing becomes rather bizarre and his

handwriting barely readable (249). We are also lold thai he starts changing

subjects "too often" and that for the first time his writing begins to lack

objectivity, that he is expressing "personal considerations." Rieux's explanation is

that Tarrou is affected by fatigue. From such information, we can infer that

Tarrou is a skilled writer when in proper health.

Grand wants to be a professional writer but experiences extreme difficulty

in getting past the first sentence of his book. Even when speaking. Grand has

trouble finding the right words. He is the silent type, awkward (80). Grand, who

has "microscopic" handwriting, wants to write a perfect book, which must start

with the perfect sentence. He wants his future editor, after the reading of the

manuscript, to tell his colleagues to take off their hats in admiration. Rieux

points out to the reader—not to Grand—that what Grand foresees is unlikely

because editors do not wear hats while in buildings.

Throughout the novel, several versions of Grand's sentence are revealed to

the reader. The first version of this sentence is as follows: "On a beautiful

morning in the month of May. an elegant Amazon traveled through, on a superb chestnut-colored mare, the flower-covered paths of the Boulogne forest" (99)(46).

Rieu.x cites Grand: "Evenings, whole weeks on one word...and sometimes on a simple conjunction" (98). It would seem that Grand is more fastidious than

Gustave Flaubert. Grand explains that it is easy to choose between iiui and and,

but it is more difficult when choosing between and and then. He then points out yet the greater difficulty in choosing among certain equivalents of the word then.

But the most difficult choice is deciding whether the word and is to be used or 153

not in a given sentence.

The Plague has further discussions on Grand's writing ordeals. At one

point. Grand wants to change his sentence so as to say "black chestnut-colored

mare." Rieux explains that this does not make sense—Grand thought that chestnut-colored referred to the breed (in French, the word chestnut-colored does not obviously refer to color, as in English, so Grand's mistake is understandable).

Yet he is disturbed by Rieux's observation. Upon the reading of yet another version of the sentence, reservations are expressed concerning the sentence's three genitives and the presence of the word forest between a substantive and a qualifier. Unlike many writers. Grand at least knows his grammatical terminology. His problem with making up his mind regarding the final version of his sentence is probably related to his ability to be easily distracted. He gets into trouble with his boss because of his wavering mind, so it is fathomable why it would also affect his writing. A writer needs to be able to concentrate.

Grand is aware of his shortcomings. When he intuits that he is about to die of the plague, he asks for his book manuscript, which consists of about fifty pages containing the same one sentence with slight changes from one entry to the next. Grand is so ashamed that he asks for it to be burned, which Rieux does.

After Grand is cured, he loses sight of his previous behavior and starts his sentence all over again, but this time without the adjectives. Dunwoodie comments: "It is clear from the outset that 'Grand' is a misnomer" (2, 51). There is nothing grand about Grand.

It is interesting to speculate why Camus created such a character. Camus himself was criticized for his simple style of writing. Perhaps through Grand.

Camus is criticizing his critics. Grand represents the typical writer, but exaggerated, and highly so. Camus's critics wanted him to be more like Grand. 154

and it seems that Camus consented to some extent. In The Plague, he is closer

to being like Grand than in any of his other major works.

According to Patrick Imbert. Camus's purpose in creating Grand was to

poke fun at the Naturalists—Grand is a Naturalist. Imbert compares the basic

structure of Grand's sentence with the sentence structures of writers regarded as

Naturalists or near-Naturalists. Imbert was even able to find a passage from Zola

that has ail the main elements of Grand's sentence: the month of May, the path,

the horse, and the image of the Amazon (151).

Rieux is the fourth writer in, and the writer of. The Plague, which is supposedly a chronicle. In Camus's notebooks, we read. "The Plague is a

pamphlet" (2C, 175—emphasis his). The explanation can be found in his letter to

Roland Barthes, in which Camus discloses that the novel can be read at different

levels, but he says that the most "evident content" is the European resistance of

Nazism (PT, 1973-75). The Plague is a pamphlet against the Nazis.

For the bulk of the work, Rieux refers to himself in the third person.

Regarding his writing style, he says: "The narrator has tended toward being objective. He has wanted to modify hardly anything via the effects of art. except in regard to the elementary necessities of a more or less coherent narration"

(166)(47). Rieux does seem to be objective in his reporting. He creates this impression by quoting a variety of sources, such as Tarrou's diary and the various

mortality reports. Eve Tavor has noted that in the novel "there are no doubts about the factuality of facts, the reliability of witnesses, or the authority of the narrator-historian" (163-64). This adds to the sense of objectivity. And Gilbert

Guisan has noted that Rieux often uses expressions such as "our little city," "our fellow citizens," "our town," "our population," e.xpressions characteristic of the journalistic style (32). i.e., reading the novel is something like reading a 155

newspaper, which is supposedly objective.

D.S. Place, on the other hand, sees a degree of failure in the novel's

objectivity in regard to characterization. Place believes that too much mystery is

involved in the various characters, especially Tarrou. who is "much given to

cryptic utterances resonant with a weighty experience of life, and capable of the

heroic gesture in extreme situations: a sort of intellectual version of Humphrey

Bogart. It is the most disabling failure of imaginative realization in the novel"

(99-100).

When it comes to avoiding "the effects of art," Rieux also fails miserably,

but this is good. Laurence Porter says that The Plague is "clearly artful" (592).

He also points out that "its five numbered parts suggest the classical dramatic

structure..." (592).

Cottard is a character who wants to be a writer but who never gets around

to it. His reasons for starting the craft are hardly artistic in nature. He wants to

start writing for the same reason he fakes his suicide and gives out big tips: to

help him stay out of jail. Being a writer will make him look good in the eyes of

a potential jury. It will also help rationalize his past criminal behavior, since

artists and the like are generally regarded as being a little eccentric. Cottard says

that "an artist has more rights than another; everyone knows that. An artist is

allowed to get away with more things" (57) (48).

*

In Camus's other fiction, artists/writers indeed tend to be on the unusual side. In The Happv Death, at least in its published version, Mersault does not get around to becoming a writer. Let us remember that Camus never got around

to publishing this novel during his lifetime, even though it was his first novel, and a rather interesting one at that. Perhaps he never had it published because he 156

never finished it. even though the published version seems to be complete. The

published version has two parts, but based on Camus's notebooks, he anticipated a

third part (IC. 25). In the anticipated first chapter of this part. Mersault was to

become a writer and write the story of a man on death row. Is it possible that

this story is The Stranger? It has been said repeatedly that Camus stopped work

on The Happv Death in order to write The Stranger. Considering the similarities

between the two works, it could be said that The Stranger is the continuation, or

third part, of The Happv Death. It would be a question of a novel within a

novel. The Stranger is of the appropriate length to be a third part to The Happy

Death. We can only speculate why Camus did not make matters so. since he does not tell us. One reason might have to do with the concept of the absurd.

We do know that Camus wanted to write a novel dealing with the absurd. The

Happv Death falls short of accomplishing this goal in an explicit sense. If the two novels had been published as one. The Happv Death would have detracted from the message of The Stranger. Camus might have perceived this, and thus abandoned The Happv Death to the desk drawer.

Since The Stranger is written in the first person, we can conclude that

Meursault is a writer. What sort of writer is he? Roland Barthes refers to The

Stranger as being "dense and fine like a jewel" (63). Jean Grenier says that The

Stranger is "e.\pressed in a dry language, brief and voluntarily colorless" (37).

Nathalie Sarraute sees Meursault's writing differently: she says that Meursault has the richness of the palette of a great painter (26). She also says that he "notes with the tenderness of a poet the delicate interactions of light and shade, and the changing nuances of the sky" (27). Despite the occasional poetry and the simple style, the text is well-organized and coherent, and unlike such works as The

Happv Death. The Fall and The First Man. Meursault's book is written in 157

chronological order, which makes the text easier to follow.

The Stranger also has Journalists. As in The Plague, there is a journalist

from Paris. Meursault describes him in unflattering terms. He says that the

journalist looks like a fattened weasel (130). A second journalist is said to be

"nice." and wishes Meursault luck in his case, but the journalist then points out

that Meursault's case is helping out newspapers financially (130). All of the

journalists in general are said to have an indifferent air about them (132). as if

Meursault's case were run-of-the-mill. The attitude of these journalists contrasts

with that of Rambert. a man of passion, if not at least in regard to passion for his

lady.

In Caligula, artists are much more prevalent, and in particular, poets. Just

after the murder of Scipion's father, Caligula and Sctpion discuss Scipion's poem.

Caligula starts to correctly guess its content. Scipion is surprised and asks for an

explanation. Caligula answers. "1 don't know. Perhaps [it's] because we like the

same truths" (80). Let us remember that Scipion refused to participate in the plot

against Caligula because of how Scipion understood Caligula's insanity. We see

here Camus's view that "the writer [is] condemned to comprehension. He can't be

a killer" (2C. 248—emphasis his). We also see Camus's view, as expressed at his

conference in Sweden, that "art cannot be a monologue" (PE, 1085). Scipion's

poem is real art because at least Caligula can relate to it. There is a dialogue.

The poets at the poetry contest, with the exception of Scipion, can be

regarded as false poets. At the contest, poets are given one minute to compose on the subject of death. The winner will be the one who is not interrupted by

Caligula's whistle. He interrupts the first seven poets--the fourth one was

interrupted before he even began reading. Scipion is verbally stopped—not by the

whistle—so Scipion wins. Caligula is impressed that someone as young as 158

Scipion would know death so well. Caligula sends the false poets away and has

them lick their "immortal" tablets in order to erase their "infamies" about death.

Caligula regards himself as being an artist. He does not participate in his

own contest because he has already composed his work on death. When asked

for it, he responds, "In my way. I recite it every day" (136), i.e.. his life is his artistic composition. He later explains that it is the only work he has ever composed, that he is the only artist ever known in Rome whose thoughts and acts are in agreement (137). He further says, "I don't need an [artistic! work: I live"

(137)(49). Anne Greenfeld says that "Caligula is, in fact, a surrealist rebel" (85).

Why? She explains how "Breton affirms that poetry must be lived, so that the poet himself might be a unifying link between the possible and the impossible"

(84). This does sound like Caligula, especially in regard to his desire to possess the moon.

George Bauer has studied the variants of Caligula and how they pertain to poetry. According to some of these variants (see FT. 1759). Caligula is against a certain kind of poetry—poetry that refuses to be a dialogue. Caligula says that he is not a poet, and within the same thought framework, he also says that he has never masturbated. Bauer explains that "to be a poet is to be a masturbator" (40), i.e., a poet is someone who does a solo act, who engages in a monologue.

Caligula is against such poets, such false poets. He prefers poets like Scipion, who are comprehensible, who engage in a dialogue with the listener or reader.

In The Just Assassins, we have one artist, a poet, Kaliayev. Because he composes poetry, he is not viewed favorably. Stepan does not trust him to throw the bomb in part because he changes the signals, but also because he writes poetry! It can also be argued that Kaliayev is a Caligula-style artist in the sense that Kaliayev lives—and dies—in accordance with what he believes, i.e., his own 159

life is a work of art.

A painter is the main character in the silent drama The Artist's Life (PT,

2054-61). At the beginning of the play, the painter and his wife are visibly

hungry because of their poverty, but matters soon change. The painter starts

finding work, and in fact, too much work. In section D of the first part, a

woman enters and wants her portrait painted. The artist abandons his work to do

it. A second and then a third woman enter and also want portraits. The artist

ends up working on three portraits at the same time. Admirers come over, who

keep him away from his work. In the section that follows, an official comes over

to present him with an award. He receives other awards to the point that he is

completely covered with them. A wreath is placed on his head. A painter comes

in to paint the scene, then a second painter comes in to paint the scene of the

first painter painting our hero, and so on with a third painter, etc.. Our hero is

presented with a mirror. He sees himself with all of his awards, and he loses his

mind. He throws all of the people out. hitting them with his paint brushes. He

destroys his paintings. Eventually, poverty sets in again. Creditors come over

and start taking things away. Indirectly, his wife gets sick and dies because of

him. He loses everything.

Of course. Camus is exaggerating the plight of artists, or at least the

plight of those artists who manage to be successful. We are shown that fame can be a hindrance. Camus himself suffered from fame—a fame which he did not always appreciate. Near the end of his life, he was compelled to write: "Before writing a novel. I'll put myself into a state of obscurity—and for years" (SC. 272).

But if there is a lesson in The Artist's Life, it is perhaps that the artist should not

make his art the number one thing in her/his life. The painter would not have lost his wife if he had been less mindful of painting and more mindful of her. 160

Camus said at his conference in Sweden: "I can't live without my art. but I've never placed this art above everything" (PE. 1071). Although Camus did manage to lose his first wife (or perhaps the other way around because of her adultery and drug habit), he did have a successful second marriage.

In "Jonas or the Artist at Work." we have a painter similar to the one above. Jonas starts off being poor, but he has faith in his star and only in it

[Camus says that he himself followed an invisible star to help him create (2C.

303)]. Eventually. Jonas begins to see success. All of a sudden he has disciples, who require him to remain faithful to his esthetic (118). even though he has only a vague idea as to what it is. But his disciples have many ideas, ideas which are contradictory. In time, his paintings make his wallet fat. He starts receiving much correspondence, which keeps him away from painting. At first, as his work decreases, his income increases, but with decreased work comes a lowering of his reputation, which in turn affects his wallet. He then discovers that alcohol provides the same sort of exaltation as days of significant work. He commits adultery. In the end. he loses his mind. Success can be dangerous.

*

In Camus's nonfiction, there is no shortage of commentary on art. artists and himself as an artist. From early in his writing career. Camus strongly associated art with its creator. In The Mvth of Sisyphus he says. "The idea of an art detached from its creator is not only out of fashion but also false" (131). Art and the artist are one. In the same book, Camus further says. "If the world were crystal-clear, art would not exist" (133). i.e., art has an explanatory function.

Science also has an explanatory function, so how does it differ from art? We find a possible answer in Camus's notebooks: "Art has the moves of modesty. It can't say things directly" (2C, 107). This perhaps explains Camus's view that 161

"few people [are] capable of understanding art" {2C. 335—emphasis his), since it

says things indirectly. One possible way of being indirect is via exaggeration.

We see this in Camus's play and short story about painters. Although the two

works lack realism because of exaggeration, a message is nevertheless conveyed,

something about the world is explained. Camus later explains that an can be a

calculated exaggeration. A nose, for example, can be said to be like a peach, but

it cannot be said to be like a pumpkin (3C. 116). Even in art. there are limits.

But some writers do not seem to realize this. Camus seems to express this

thought when he notes. "Contemporary literature: Easier to shock than to

convince" (2C. 235). These words also suggest that art should try to convince the

reader of some truth rather than Just entertain.

In The Myth of Sisyphus. Camus says. "To create is to live twice" (128).

This is because a second universe is created via the work of art. But according to

Camus's notebooks, most artists are not creating as they are supposed to: "They

[artists] redo nature, and it's quite necessary because they've forgotten it" (2C.

244). Unfortunately, most artists redo nature quite poorly: "The problem in art is a problem in translation. Bad writers: those who write while focusing on an inner context that the reader can't know. One must be two when one writes: The first thing—once again—is to learn how to dominate oneself" (IC. 234). He further says regarding bad writers: "Those who write in an obscure manner are quite lucky: they'll have commentators. Others will have only readers, which seems to be contemptible" (2C. 320).

Camus is also irritated by the attitude of many artists: "The terrible and devouring egoism of artists" (2C. 124). Similarly, he states: "Artists want to be saints, not artists. I can't be a saint. We want universal consent, and we shall not get it" (2C, 250). Let us note that all these negative outlooks regarding 162

artists are to be found in Camus's notebooks, i.e.. in his private writings. In his

public writings, he plays a not-so-negative tune. He writes about artists in some

of his articles published in L'Express. In one article: "How would an artist

justify his privileges (if he has any) in any other way than to take part, at the

level of everyone, in the long struggle for the liberation of work and culture?"

{Ex60). This is definitely more on the positive side, and it also reveals that

artists have a duty to people and not just to art. As the article later reveals, a

writer should show solidarity with her/his city, yet she/he is also solitary (the

solidarity/solitary wordplay is even stronger in French, and intentional:

solidaire/solitaire). And a different article reveals that the artist is "a witness of

freedom" (Ex 134). The same article also explains that artists help people make a

living. For example, numerous people earn an income that is somehow

associated with Mozart: music publishers, musicians, scholars. Artists, via their

works, also make life more bearable and pleasant for the population at large.

Camus wrote essays, reviews, and book introductions on several writers.

Camus saw his name in print for the first time in March of 1932: an article on

Verlaine. published in Sud. Camus's favorite writer seems to have been Gide.

whose works Camus read in their entirety. Camus was also particularly fond of

Roger Martin du Gard. And let us remember that Camus admired certain writers so much that he agreed to adapt or independently adapted samples of their works for the stage: Pierre de Larivey, Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Dino Buzzati. Lope de Vega. Willian Faulkner, Dostoevski. Camus's notebooks are also littered with quotations on what certain writers/artists thought about writing/art. There are quotations from Bayle. Wilde. Tchekhov, Pavese, and especially Nietzche. It is probably with such authors in mind that Camus writes: "Great souls interest me— and only they" (2C, 267). 163

Charles Poncet once asked Camus whether he would have chosen soccer or

theater as a career if he had remained in good health. Without hesitation Camus

said soccer (Boone. 17). But he fell ill. and as a result, he became an artist,

which in turn eventually got him the Nobel Prize when he was only forty-four

years old. thus making him the second youngest recipient of the award at the time

(British poet Rudyard Kipling was two years younger). Oddly enough. Camus

considered sculpture, not literature, to be the greatest art. But literature was not

too bad for him. While in Italy, he exclaims: "Writing, my profound joy!" (IC.

77). Much later he says: "I have found no other justification for my life than this effort of creation. In regard to everything else. I have failed. And if this does

not Justify me. then my life will not deserve to be absolved" (3C. 80). Writing

was just about everything for Camus. He even says: "Yes. I have a country: the

French language" (2C. 337). However, later in life, he questioned his profession and seriously considered abandoning it. He says that his interminable effort

makes him unhappy in his happiness (3C. 207-208). But this is all a phase. He later says: "My job is to write my books and fight when the liberty of my own and of my people is threatened. That's it" (3C. 22). And he did his job well.

Jean-Paul Sartre said that Camus "represented in this century...the current heir of this long line of moralists whose works constitute perhaps that which is the most original in French literature" (170-71).

Camus's writing style obviously differs across his works. One general pattern is that he is usually easy to understand and follow. Various scholars have noticed other patterns. Pierre Lapaire finds that Camus's esthetic is a search for balance (614). This can be seen in his frequent use of binary structures, such as in sentence formation, e.g.. "There is good and evil, the conqueror and conquered": in opposing characters, e.g.. Scipion and Cherea. or Rieux and 164

Paneloux: in the presentation of concepts, e.g.. the penitent judge (it has two parts): in literary work divisions, e.g.. The Stranger is divided into two parts, as is The Happy Death: in literary work titles, e.g.. "Between Yes and No": and in thematic structural doubling, e.g.. as is seen in "The Renegade..." (hate/love.

Christianity/paganism).

E. Freeman has noted that the language used by Camus's theater characters is not consistent with their respective backgrounds. They speak more eloquently than appropriate, e.g.. characters tend to use inversion when asking questions rather than the more common colloquial patterns. Freeman sees other patterns— and negative ones at that—in Camus's writing style (at least in his theater):

"Incommunicable metaphysics, disparity of form and theme, faulty theatrical judgment, philosophical complexity and abstraction, cloying didacticism..."

(163). Some of this may be true, but his alleged flaws are overshadowed by his literary and philosophical strengths. 165

3.3.- Clergy

Members of the clergy are Camus's least favorite victims. Although they tend to be victims of a variety of aggressors. Camus seems to emphasize that members of the clergy are primarily victims of the inner plague, i.e., victims of falsehood, which for Camus, includes religion.

In The Plague. Father Paneloux is the member of the clergy who stands out—the other ones are barely mentioned. He is said to be "an erudite and militant Jesuit" (23). He is held in high esteem even by those indifferent to religion. During the course of the novel, he changes. The turning point is his witnessing of the suffering and death of the Othon child. In a way. there are two

Panelouxs in the novel. I shall examine each in turn.

In essence, Paneloux is a good man, a man with good intentions, a man who cares about people. At one moment in the novel, the sick concierge is holding the arm of Paneloux. Later in the novel, as the result of Rambert's plan to leave the city. Paneloux accepts to replace him at the quarantine house.

Paneloux is a caring person from the beginning: however, emphasis in the novel is on his flaws.

Paneloux is described as a physically droll character. While he is standing behind the pulpit, he is said to be "a thick and black form surmounted by the two blemishes of his cheeks, rosy under his steel glasses" (91)(50). Physically, at least, he is hardly a serious character.

The pre-changed Paneloux is best seen during his first sermon. Sunday mornings, swimming in the sea competes against going to church, which tells us that Paneloux and his colleagues are not overly entertaining preachers to begin with; otherwise, swimming would not be such a competitor. But the plague and 166

subsequent shutting up of the city aid in filling up the city's cathedral. On the

day of Paneloux's first sermon, the cathedral is filled beyond capacity. His very

first reported words are: "My brothers, misfortune has overtaken you: my

brothers, you have deserved it" (91). These words, of course, have an effect on

the congregation. Paneloux goes on to e.xplain. "The first time this scourge

appeared in history, it was to smite the enemies of God" (91). which suggests that

the inhabitants of Oran may now be enemies of God. But Panelou.x does offer

some consoling words: "The just cannot fear this [plague], but evildoers are right

to tremble" (92). Salvation will come from God, not from "vain human science."

It is interesting to note that according to the Catholic version of the Bible, there

is nothing wrong with science. Ecclesiasticus 38:6-7 says: "And it is He who

gave men science so that they would be glorified by its marvels. It is with these

that the doctor will heal and that he'll get rid of pain " Paneloux is a priest

who does not know his Bible—or Camus does not know enough about priests so as

to accurately portray them.

According to Paneloux, the plague brings righteousness. Rieux. speaking

with Tarrou, criticizes Paneloux for finding good in the plague. Rieux says. "He

has not seen enough dying and that's why he speaks in the name of a truth" (119).

Rieux further points out that a country priest who has heard the breathing of a dying man thinks as he. Rieux. does: he would try to heal the misery before trying to find excellence in it.

Rieux tells us that Paneloux changed on the day of the death of the Othon child. For Paneloux. the "spectacle" was unbearable. After Rieux points out that the child was innocent. Paneloux says. "But perhaps we should love that which we cannot understand" (196). Rieux's contrary opinion is: "And I'll refuse until death to love this creation where children are tortured" (199)(51). 167

Paneloux's change manifests itself in his second sermon. For this sermon,

the church had only men. The primary change in Paneloux is in how he no

longer says "you," as in the first sermon, but "we." He is now part of the party.

In the sermon, he says that an effort should not be made to e.xplain the plague, since there is nothing to e.xplain. This contrasts with his first sermon because in it he did try to explain the plague.

Further into the second sermon, he says. "My brothers, the moment has come. We must believe everything or deny everything. And who, therefore, among you, would dare to deny everything?" (204). He goes on to explain that it is not a question of mere resignation but of humiliation—a humiliation in which the humiliated individual consents to the humiliation. In the first sermon, he wanted people to change, not give in. Paneloux illustrates his view on resignation by bringing up an event that took place during the plague that hit

Marseilles: There were eighty monks/nuns in the Convent of Mercy. Only four survived, and three of these had fled. Paneloux says that "it's necessary to be the one who stays" (206). By recounting this incident, he is acknowledging that God could strike down even him, that his priesthood is no protection. Paneloux also discusses Bishop Belzunce, who, near the end of the Marseilles plague, and after having done all chat he could have done, locked himself up in his wall-enclosed house. The inhabitants got angry and surrounded his house with cadavers. He should have made himself available until the very end, even though he felt he was no longer needed.

Upon the conclusion of the second sermon, Rieux leaves the church building. Just in front of him are an old priest and a young deacon. The deacon says that the treatise Paneloux is working on is so bold that it would certainly not receive the imprimatur. The old priest wants to know the main idea: "If a priest 168

consults a doctor, there is contradiction" (207). Once again. Paneloux is showing

himself to be unfamiliar with the Bible. At the beginning of the thirty-eighth chapter of Ecclesiasticus. which is part of the Catholic version of the Bible, although not of the Protestant version, we read. "Honor the doctor," and later on.

"From the earth the Lord created medicines, and a prudent man will not reject them." It would seem that Paneloux is not a prudent man, at least not until he gets sick himself and remains so for quite some time. At the onset of his illness, he is living with an elderly woman. She proposes to call a doctor, but "her proposition was rejected with violence." He apologizes to her for his outburst.

Later on she again suggests that a doctor be called, and again he rejects her suggestion. In the afternoon, she offers once again to fetch a doctor, but

Paneloux says again that he does not want a doctor. The following day. the elderly lady makes the same suggestion. This time, the priest acknowledges that he is not doing too well. He tells her that he does not need a doctor, but that he will go to the hospital "so that everything will be within the rules" (210). He eventually dies, but it is not clear whether or not he dies of the plague. By having Paneloux die in this fashion. Camus avoids generating the impression that he is on an all-out witch hunt against priests. But it is clear that there is nevertheless some degree of a witch hunt going on. Camus's original plan for

Paneloux even included his losing his faith.

*

In the rest of Camus's fiction, there is more of the same regarding members of the clergy, except perhaps in The Stranger, where the prison chaplain is portrayed in a relatively positive way. In the novel, Meursault rejects the chaplain's visits four times, which says something about the chaplain's concern for Meursault, a total stranger. We learn that the chaplain is rejected because 169

Meursault does not believe in God. However, the chaplain remains steadfast, and even gets around to calling Meursault "my friend," although technically the two are not friends. The chaplain is trying to be nice. He later tries to comfort

Meursault by pointing out that we are all condemned to death, but Meursault points out in turn that his condemnation to death is different, and that the chaplain's belief is of no consolation to him. The chaplain asks Meursault whether or not he lives with the belief that when he dies, he will die entirely. To the chaplain's surprise, Meursault answers in the affirmative. Yet Meursault goes on to disturb the chaplain again when he makes it clear that he no longer wants to talk about God because he, Meursault, has little time and does not want to waste it on God. Despite such hardness of heart on Meursault's part, the chaplain wonders why Meursault calls him "Sir" rather than "Father." Meursault explains that it is because the prison chaplain is not Meursault's father. In the chaplain's immediate response, he calls Meursault "my son." and says that he will pray for him. This causes Meursault to go berserk and start insulting the chaplain. The guards come over, yet the chaplain calms them. With tears in his eyes, he leaves the cell. The chaplain seems to be a man of compassion, and definitely a man of patience, but according to Meursault, the chaplain "was not even sure of being alive, since he lived like a dead man" (182). Richard Akeroyd also views the prison chaplain negatively. Akeroyd says that the chaplain "uses the emotional approach, which one feels is downright dishonest as it is controlled by a sort of psychoanalytic dexterity, cat and mouse style, behind the scenes" (84). Perhaps this is so. but then again, the chaplain could be genuine. His behavior does contrasts sharply with that of the religious Judge, who is obviously using psychological ploys to proselytize Meursault.

In the second letter of Letters to a German Friend (Lettres a un ami 170

allemand) (PE, 227-232). Camus recounts the story of a priest who blindly serves

his country: A truck is carrying away eleven French citizens to be executed by the

Germans, but only five or six of the French citizens are actually guilty. Among

the innocent is a sixteen-year-old, who Jumps off the truck. A priest is the only

one who sees him do it, but he sounds the alarm anyway. The boy is recaptured

and beaten up somewhat. He will eventually be executed. Camus says that the

story was told to him by a French priest. A priest pointing out the flaws of

another priest helps to lessen the negative effect the German priest imparts to

priests in general. It shows once again Camus's attempt to balance out his

portrayal of members of the clergy.

In State of Siege. Camus is not as kind. Near the beginning of the play,

the priest wants everyone to go to church and confess to one another each one's

sins. This is somewhat extreme, and is not something a Catholic priest would

do. He says. "Open your hearts, accursed ones!" (PT. 209). This priest is worse

than the Paneloux of the first sermon. Later in the play, a voice says. "Priest,

don't leave me. I'm your poor person" {226)(52). but the priest flees, abandoning

the indigent fellow.

In "The Adulterous Woman" (Exile and the Kingdom), there are no

priestly characters to examine, but Camus does seem to refer in part to the clergy: "But who can always sleep alone? Some men do it. cut off from others

by profession or misfortune, who lie thus every night in the same bed as death"

(30).

In "The Renegade..." (Exile and the Kingdom), the main character is a priest who is sent to some heathens in order to convert them to Catholicism, but the priest ends up being converted himself, via torture, to the religion of the savages. In other words, he loses his faith. 171

He himself does not have a good opinion of the clergy: "To convert some

good misguided people was the shabby ideal of our priests" (41). This attitude is

probably a significant factor in the speed involved in his conversion to the savages' primitive religion. The renegade even gets to the point of considering the witch doctor to be his new god: "Never had a god possessed me so. nor enslaved me...." (50). And when the follow-up missionary shows up. the renegade attacks him. The renegade says. "How good the sound of a rifle butt on the face of goodness...." (58). Perhaps by pointing out the goodness of the follow-up missionary. Camus is once again attempting to counter the negative image a bad priest delivers onto priests in general.

In The First Man, the clergy is once again presented in an unflattering manner, but this negativity is counteracted by some positive aspects, as is done in previous works. In the novel. Grandma wants Jacques to have his First Holy

Communion. They go to a priest, who says that it will take three years of catechism. Grandma wants it done a lot sooner or Jacques will not have his First

Holy Communion. The priest agrees to an accelerated instructional program of one month, but a second priest does the teaching (recitation style, in which questions and their answers have to be memorized). The first priest is said to be good and gentle, but the second one is said to be harsh. This is illustrated in an incident that takes place during one of the classes. As a student is reciting a lesson. Jacques is making faces with the other students (Jacques is nine years old at the time, so his behavior is understandable). The priest notices Jacques's behavior and calls him up to the front of the class. The priest then slaps him with such force that Jacques almost falls down. He starts bleeding from the inside of his cheek. He swallows his blood.

Later in the novel, when Jacques starts attending high school, he 172

encounters what will become perhaps the opposite of the second priest. George

Didier is a fellow student who wants to become a priest. He is said to be

"Extremely intelligent" (190). It is also mentioned that he never uses vulgarities

or makes references to those bodily functions that high school students are

generally quite interested in. He is a good kid. but despite this, as a note to the

text suggests, he would eventually die during the course of the novel (Camus's

own death kept him from writing the part on George's death). Nevertheless, the

presence of George, a good future priest, aids once again in counteracting the

negative image that the second priest transfers onto others in his holy profession.

*

In Camus's notebooks, we see that Camus had plans to write at least one

other work involving the clergy. It is a short story project about a priest who is

happy with his lot in life, but who by chance finds himself with a man who is

just about to be executed. The priest loses his faith (IC. 213).

There is another entry that appears to consist of notes for a future literary

work, but the entry is not designated as such, as is Camus's habit. The entry is

on a priest who regrets leaving his books behind in order to face the far greater

pleasure of eternal life (3C, 109).

Why does Camus lack a fondness for the clergy? It probably has a lot to

do with what the members of the clergy represent: Christianity, a religion that

Camus seriously questioned. In a note for the first chapter of The Rebel. Camus

writes: "That which is immoral is Christianity" (2C. 125). In an article originally

published in Combat. Camus says that "Christianity...is a doctrine of injustice. It

is founded on the sacrifice of the innocent and the acceptance of this sacrifice"

(PE. 271). For Camus. Christianity is basically false: "It is up to us to create

God. He is not the creator. Behold the whole story of Christianity, since we 173

have but one way to create God. which is to become him" (2C. 127). It is

interesting to note that Camus occasionally uses the expression "My God." in his private writings. In his travel journal, while flying over South America, he notes: "It's cold in the plane. God knows why?" (V102). Such references to God might be e.xplained by the unusual statement: "I do not believe in God and I'm not an atheist" (3C. 128—emphasis his). Unfortunately, Camus does not e.vplain himself. However, in an interview in which he basically expresses the same thought, he says that he is in agreement with Benjamin Constant that there is something vulgar and commonplace in irreligion (PT, 1881). This suggests that he has a religion, but one without God. Camus does not believe in God. i.e.. the

Christian God. but he perhaps believes in the possibility of a god. a non-Christian one. since Camus says that he is not an atheist.

But being against Christianity does not necessarily mean that Camus is against Christians. He makes that clear. Some of his best friends were

Christian. Many who fought in the Resistance at his side were also honorable

Christians. To dislike the clergy takes more than a dislike for Christianity.

Camus sees a difference between the average Christian and members of the clergy. More is expected of the latter, but they deliver less, and are often self- righteous. In a note on the 1481 plague that ravaged the southern area of Spain.

Camus reminds us that the Inquisition blamed the Jews, but the plague killed an

Inquisitor (IC. 239)! And at a conference Camus gave at a convent, he brings up the topic of the Spanish civil war and points out that a certain Spanish bishop blessed political executions. Camus says that the bishop is not a Christian, nor a man. but a dog (PE. 373). Camus has good reasons to criticize at least some members of the clergy. 174

3.4.- Judges

In Camus's works, judges are primarily shown to be victims of the inner plague, as is the case for members of the clergy. But contrary to a large extent to how Camus portrays the clergy, good judges are not presented to counterbalance the presence of the questionable ones. But in The Plague, as

Camus had done with Paneloux. a judge with negative trails is made to change for the better as the result of a child's death: his own son's death.

We encounter Judge Othon and his son near the beginning of the novel.

As is the case with Paneloux. the physical description of Othon is quite unflattering. He is said to appear as if he were half and half an undertaker's mute and what used to be called a man of the world (18). Later in the novel, he is called an owl man (110).

Othon is also religious, in a somewhat dogmatic manner. He tells Rieux that Paneloux's sermon (the first one) is "absolutely irrefutable" (96)—let us remember that Paneloux himself, to an extent, refutes his first sermon during his second one. Later in the novel, Othon says regarding the plague: "It's necessary to always hope. The plans of Providence are impenetrable" (136). But as we shall see, Othon's hopes eventually come to naught.

.N'ear the end of June, dogs and cats that "could have transmitted fleas"

(107)(53) are to be shot. And these shots are heard. Several days later. Othon is seen about followed by two trained dogs, presumably his. dogs presumably incapable of transmitting fleas, since the dogs are still alive. Of course, being a judge brings with it special privileges. He gets to keep his dogs—dogs which indeed can contribute to people dying of the plague. Someone as educated as a judge certainly knows this, yet Othon takes the risk of his dogs indirectly giving 175

people the plague. Perhaps his son got the plague via a flea from one of the

dogs. It would seem that Othon is not very bright, or is so righteous in his own

eyes that he is convinced that God will protect him and his own.

When Othon's son gets the plague, the rest of the family is placed in

quarantine. Although not present at his son's death and unaware of the boy's

agony, Othon is significantly affected, as can be expected. When he eventually

gets out of the isolation camp, he returns to it to help out. even though it is a

rather unpleasant place. He says that being there and helping out makes him feel

closer to his son. In time, Othon is himself infected with the plague and Joins

his son in death.

•

In Camus's other fiction, judges are considerably more misguided, and do

not get around to changing for the better, as had Othon.

The judge in The Stranger is quite a character. He has piercing blue eyes,

a long gray mustache and lots of almost-white hair. When he first speaks with

Meursault, the room is lit in such a way that Meursault is in the light and the

judge in the shadows. Meursault had "read a similar description in books, and all of this seemed...to be a game" (100). But the Judge gets even weirder, this time

in a fully-lighted room. He wants to help Meursault "with the help of God"

(105). The judge will show himself to be even more religiously zealous than

Othon. The judge takes out a silver crucifix from a drawer and shows it to

Meursault, who reports: "Then he told me very quickly and with passion that he

believed in God, that his conviction was that no man was guilty enough to not be forgiven by God, but that for this it was necessary for the man to become through his repentance like a child, whose soul is empty and ready to welcome anything"

(106-107)(54). The judge then asks Meursault if he believes in God. Meursault 176

says no. The judge reacts by saying that it is impossible, that all men believe in

God. even those who reject him—if this is so, then why ask Meursault in the first

place?

The j'udge gets still weirder: Without his religious conviction, the j'udge says that his life would have no meaning; he then asks Meursault: "Do you want

my life to have no meaning?" (108). Crucifix in hand, the j'udge continues, "I'm a Christian. I ask forgiveness for your trespasses to the one here [Christ on the silver cross]. How can you not believe that he suffered for you?" (108).

The j'udge claims to have had success in getting other criminals to repent, but he gets nowhere with Meursault. In fact, the j'udge probably contributes to pushing Meursault further away from Christianity. The j'udge even calls

Meursault "Mr. Antichrist" (111). Richard Akeroyd summarizes the j'udge's style as follows: "The Examining Magistrate of The Stranger is overbearing and domineering. Meursault, to him. is j'ust another candidate for conversion and he meets him head-on obj'ectively: he uses will and the force of personality" (84).

In State of Siege, the j'udge is even worse. The action takes place in

Spain. The j'udge is named Casado, which is not a typical Spanish name. It is the masculine singular form of the Spanish adj'ective married. Like the two previous judges I have discussed, Casado is also religiously inclined. After the comet is seen, doom is predicted. Casado thinks the comet is a sign from God.

Nada blasphemes. The judge tells him not to. Casado then tells the people to get on their knees, and they do, except Nada, who is physically incapable of kneeling because of a disability. When Nada reveals that he believes only in wine, Casado implores God to forgive him. Casado also prays "Spare this city of your children" (PT. 194). He reads psalms. But when the plague man takes over. Casado changes. But unlike Othon, who changed for the better. Casado 177 goes in tiie opposite direction: he gets worse. He starts to serve the plague man:

"If crime becomes the law, crime ceases being crime" (PT, 251)(28). The judge picks up the belief that even virtue must be punished if it has the arrogance to dispute the law.

When Diego threatens to infect the son of Casado's wife, who is not

Casado's son, Casado is not concerned, even though he had previously prayed to

God, "Spare this city of your children" (PT, 194). In fact, when the plague man first starts doing his damage, Casado shuts up his house while his daughter

Victoria is yet unaccounted for. When his wife displays her worry, he counters with a cold lack of concern—for his own daughter! Although she is an adult rather than a child, still Immediately afterward, he starts reading a psalm

(PT, 210-211). He behaves in this fashion before the plague man officially takes over, so Casado's change for the worse is not as pronounced as one would think because he was pretty misguided to begin with. We later learn that much earlier in his life. Casado had made cowardly excuses to get out of a duel. He had also resorted to dishonorable means to avoid the conscription, and had offered his bed to a young woman. Victoria points out that her father had never judged except according to hatred (PT, 256)—hardly an ideal judge.

In "The Rock That Grows" (Exile and the Kingdom), the judge is a definite improvement over Casado, but is still someone who should not have such a profession. He is described as a "weak creature" (155). He comes into the scene just after a drunk official asks for D'Arrast's passport and reacts as if there were something wrong with it. The judge explains to D'Arrast that it was the chief of police who "dared pretend that the passport was not in order" (155). The judge then says that a punishment is required and that D'Arrast should choose it.

Even the mayor believes that a punishment is "indispensable" (156). Some time 178

later, the judge asks D'Arrast if he has thought about the punishment. D'Arrast asks, "What punishment?" The judge reminds him about the punishment of the chief of police. D'Arrast wants to let the matter go, but the judge insists that the chief of police must be punished. After another stretch of time, the judge, for the third time, wants to know about the punishment for the chief of police.

D'Arrast says that it would be a personal favor and "a very exceptional grace" that the chief of police be forgiven. And it is so. It would seem that D'Arrast, an engineer who says that he does not go to church, would make a better judge than the judge.

In The Fall, we learn about a different kind of judge: the penitent judge.

Clamence says: "I am the end and the beginning: I announce the law. In brief,

I'm a penitent judge" (136). According to Clamence, every judge ends up eventually being penitent (159). Clamence wants to go in the opposite direction: in order to become a judge, he first must be penitent. This is why he practices public confession, since being penitent involves confessing one's faults. There is mockery involved in the concept of the penitent judge, but that is because a penitent judge is an existentialist, and Camus was not fond of existentialists. He claimed in an interview that The Myth of Sisvphus was written against existentialists (PE, 1424). In an article originally appearing in Combat. Camus states that he believes that the conclusions of the "too famous existential philosophy" are false (PE, 312). In essence, existentialists have made themselves out to be judges of mankind, and according to Camus, they have judged wrong.

•

Several major characters in Camus's fiction are judges, but his notebooks are almost completely devoid of references to people in this profession. It would seem that he was interested in judges but not to the same extent as with other 179

victims.

I would like to examine only one entry pertaining to judges, and in

particular, penitent judges, i.e.. e.xistentialists as judges. The notebook entry

explains why existentialists are said to be penitent: "Existentialism. When they

accuse themselves, we can be sure that it is always to overwhelm us. Penitent

judges" (3C. 147).* This is what Clamence does in The Fall. By recounting to

us his life story, he is not just judging himself but mankind as well, since he is a

man. He also talks so much about other people. And this judgment is not optimistic.

•For the uninitiated, existentialism can be conceived in the simplest of terms as the opposite of determinism, although technically this is perhaps simplifying matters too much. Jean-Paul Sartre's book on existentialism. Existentialism is a Humanism (L'Existentialisme est un humanisme). provides substantial information on what existentialism is. and does so quite clearly, although not always. In essence, existentialism is "a doctrine that makes human life possible." in the sense of making it bearable (12). It is a lifestyle. There are also two types of existentialism: Christian and atheistic (17). However, when people talk about existentialism, it is usually the atheistic kind that is being considered. It focuses on man and attempts to explain him and guide him. The first principle of existentialism, according to Sartre, is that "man is nothing but what he makes of himself" (22), i.e.. there is nothing predetermined, except that he exists. He later defines himself. He is also "responsible for all men" (24). Because of this, "man is anguish" (28). But although man is free because of the lack of determinism, because there is supposedly no God. "man is condemned to be free" (37—emphasis mine). This freedom is painful because man must come up with his own reality, with his own morality. He cannot rely on Christianity or some other morality, at least according to atheistic existentialism. Sartre suggests that the guiding principle for "men of good faith" be the quest for liberty (82). In general, the view of mankind is pessimistic. This is best seen in Sartre's fiction, and is succinctly summarized in a famous phrase appearing in his play No Exit (Huis clos): "L'enfer, c'est les Autres" (somewhat literally: "Hell, it's Others") (92). .A.S we have seen in previous sections and shall see in the next one, Clamence exhibits many of these existentialist qualities: he defines himself and man via his confession: his preoccupation with the woman he failed to save shows his responsibility toward all people, and how it causes him anguish: he is also no fan of Christianity, and seemingly comes up with his own morality, a morality that is not very moral. He is also condemned to be free, so to speak. And he oozes an extreme pessimism about man. 180

3.5.- Lawyers

In Camus's literary world, lawyers are presented primarily as being

victims of the inner plague. In The Plague. Tarrou says that the "great victims

of the plague" (by which he means the inner plague) are those who wear red robes

(227), i.e., lawyers, and especially, prosecutors. In a way, I have already

discussed lawyers in the section on judges because judges, with the exception of

most penitent judges (existentialists), are also lawyers. But in this section, I

would like to examine lawyers in Camus's fiction who do not preside over other

lawyers.

In The Plague. Tarrou introduces us to his father, a lawyer. Tarrou tells

us that he was good-humored. The father also showed affection toward Tarrou and tried to understand him. Although the father was unfaithful to his wife—

Tarrou's mother—he did so with care, without making an unsightly spectacle.

Tarrou does not seem to be outraged at his father's adultery. He tells us that his

father was not a saint, but he was not a bad man either. This is as far as the

positive commentary goes.

Tarrou's father was fascinated with train schedules. He knew the exact arrival and departure times for the Paris-Berlin train. He also knew by heart other trivialities pertaining to travel, such as the e.^act distances, in kilometers, between capital cities. But what is most notable about Tarrou's father is how fascinated he was by executions. He had witnessed several of them, and went to the trouble of getting up extra early in order to be present. As a prosecutor, he was responsible for at least some of those chopped-off heads. Tarrou refers to execution as assassination (225). Indirectly, his father was an assassin. It was his father's affection for capital punishment that drove Tarrou from the family 181

home and into a life of poverty, and then into politics in an effort to fight the

death penalty.

*

There are several other lawyers in Camus's other fiction. In The Stranger,

there is another lawyer who does not seem to have a problem with execution.

This lawyer is the prosecutor in Meursault's case. He is a tall, thin man. and

wears a red robe. When sitting down, he is careful to fold the robe in the right

places.

Although the witnesses at the trial are pro-Meursault, and try to help him,

the prosecutor still succeeds in making Meursault seem like a despicable human

being. The prosecutor is a weasel: For the most part, he ignores the actual crime

and attempts instead to play on the sentiments of the jury. What he tries to show

at the trial is expressed succinctly in this statement he makes to the j'ury:

"Gentlemen of the j'ury, the day after the death of his mother, this man took baths

[in the sea], began an irregular liaison, and went to laugh at [a showing of] a

funny movie. I've nothing else to tell you" (144-45).

Marie's behavior and statements add support to the prosecutor's craftiness:

Immediately after his statement to the j'ury. she begins to sob. pointing out that

"it was not that way at all, that there was something else, that she was being forced to say the opposite of what she thought " (145). The prosecutor later addresses the topic of Meursault's soul, and says that he does not have one. And finally he says. "I ask for the head of this man" (157). The prosecutor explains that he makes this request with a "light heart," since he feels that Meursault truly deserves to die.

The other lawyer in The Stranger is Meursault's defense lawyer. In shape and size, he is the opposite of the prosecutor. The prosecutor is tall and thin; 182

Meursault's defense lawyer is "small and round" (100). He is also quite confident

that he will win the case for Meursault. but at the trial, the prosecutor gets the

upper hand and even mocks the defense lawyer. For example, when the defense lawyer asks, "Well then. Is he [Meursault] accused of having buried his mother or of having killed a man?" (148), the prosecutor responds with ridicule that "it was necessary to have the ingenuity of the honorable defender in order not to sense that there was between these two actions a profound, pathetic and essential connection." The prosecutor goes on to say: "Yes, I accuse this man of having buried a mother while having a criminal heart." The narrator notes that these words have a "considerable effect" on the people present.

The defense lawyer is not only the victim of the prosecutor's tongue but also a victim of his own tongue. During final arguments, the defense lawyer seemingly discourses forever, using the first person singular when talking about

Meursault. which, of course, is odd. Meursault notes that his lawyer seems ludicrous. But unlike the prosecutor, the defense lawyer does seem to have a heart. He speaks of Meursault's soul and says that he found something there. He also says that Meursault is "an honest man, a regular worker, tireless, faithful to the company that employed him, loved by all and sympathetic to the miseries of others" (159). But despite such characteristics, the jury prefers to see things from the prosecution's perspective.

In The Fall, there are also two main lawyers: Clamence and his interlocutor; however, not much is said about the latter. At first. Clamence thinks he is a refined bourgeois. It is not until the end of the book that we learn that he is a lawyer from Paris, like Clamence. The interlocutor has some riches, but claims to have not shared them with the poor; however, he does eventually get around to sharing a considerable amount of time with Clamence. Bartfeld 183 sees in the interlocutor a victim. Clamence's victim Q. 122). She points out that

Clamence is a seducer who develops a dependence on the interlocutor, who in turn has developed a dependence on Clamence. Metaphorically speaking, they are holding mirrors up to one another. It is a question of what Bartfeld calls

"narcissistic pleasure" (122). Roland Simon also sees in Clamence a seducer, pointing out that "the French language has structures that seduce...." (545).

Clamence apparently knows what these structures are. if indeed such structures exist. In my opinion, it is what he says rather than how he says it that makes him a "seducer."

The title of the novel. The Fall, and Clamence's first name. Jean-Baptiste. bring to mind biblical imagery. In fact, there is no shortage of biblical imagery in the novel. Clamence knows his Bible. Like John the Baptist, Clamence is a prophet, albeit one not appointed by God. What Clamence proclaims is an anti-

Gospel. i.e., bad news, namely, that mankind is despicable. Clamence does this by highlighting what is negative in people and in himself, who are one. Susan

McGrath says that "his ironic narration as Judge-penitent is every man's: it reveals a world where injustices are an inescapable part of existence. He sees himself in others, he sees others in himself..." (127). According to Roger Quilliot,

"Clamence is no one and he is everyone; a hero of our times and a man of always..." (PT. 2011). In a "please insert" section for The Fall. Camus writes that Clamence "has a modern heart: in other words, he cannot stand being judged.

He therefore hastens himself to make his own case, but it's to better j'udge others"

(PT, 2015). And regarding the novel as a whole, Jean Batt writes: "Here. then, is the Candide of the twentieth century. And I think that like Clamence's listeners we will all feel, as we read, that we are looking in the mirror" (419).

What does he say about himself? Quite a bit, but what follows are the 184

highlights: He points out that he uses the imperfect of the subjunctive, which

suggests a desire to use flowery language. His use of this literary mood irritates

his interlocutor. Clamence also reveals his work for noble causes: at one time,

he helped the blind to cross the street, and took pleasure in giving aims: as a

lawyer, he helped out widows and orphans. But he has contempt for Judges in general, which suggests that he would have contempt for God. But despite his

lack of religious beliefs. Clamence talks about paradise as if it really existed at one time. He believes, for example, that woman is all that we have left from paradise. He would not believe this if paradise had not actually existed. He also seems to acknowledge the possibility or at least the concept of eternal life, and thus God. when he says. "Because I desired eternal life. I therefore slept around with whores and I drank during the night" (119). Among his other sins, he confesses that he stole a painting from a cathedral. He also admits to being a coward, which is why he did not save the woman who jumped into the Seine.

And when he gets around to talking about people who forgive offenses but do not forget them, he shares that he does the opposite: he does not forgive, but he forgets. At first this may seem like an improvement over what most people do. but Clamence does not use the word forget in the usual sense: For example, he discusses his past loves, people he claims to have forgotten, but how is it that he discusses them when he has supposedly forgotten them? In reality, he does not forgive offenses, nor does he forget them. Joseph Majault calls Clamence a

"modern Tartuffe" (111), which is perhaps what he is.

There is much that Clamence is critical of. To quite some extent, he focuses on aspects dealing with Christianity. He faults Christians for not liking to give alms, which he exulted in. He goes higher up the ladder and faults the

Pope: he points out that it is necessary to forgive the Pope, as if the Pope needs 185

forgiveness. But this is not enough for Clamence. He goes higher up the ladder

of Christianity to Peier and says that he was a coward, and that it was on this

rock that the Church was built, which in turn is unflattering to the Church. But even this is not enough for Clamence. He goes all the way up to Christ and claims that He was crucified because He was not entirely innocent, since He was responsible for the massacre of the Innocents. And Clamence even seems to do away with God when he says. "Religions make mistakes from the moment they devise morality— God is not necessary to create guilt, nor to inflict punishment" (128). Why? Because man can adequately do this task himself.

Clamence uses religious terminology to describe the unpleasantness of the world. He says, for example, that the world consists of limbo—in Dante's sense of the concept, which Clamence points out is a sort of entrance hall to hell.

Clamence also laughs at the Last Judgment because the judgment of man is worse. Also regarding people, he says: "We are all guilty before one another, ail christs in our own villainous way, one at a time crucified,..." (135). Patricia

Johnson writes: "It is the humiliation of man. his overwhelming guilt, which is the most devastating result of the Christian heritage, made all the more devastating in our time by the elimination of the antidote, grace. This is the historical moment which is the background of La Chute fThe Fall! It is this historically determined feeling of guilt on which Clamence preys" (134).

Clamence, however, is capable of leaving Christianity out of the picture, such as when he mocks the Sadducees and himself by including himself among them (15). And he can even be humorous, as when he predicts that future historians of Paris will say that its inhabitants fornicated and read the newspaper.

Clamence is certainly no ordinary lawyer. 186

*

Camus's notebooks do not have any insightful entries on lawvers--in my opinion. This suggests that Camus's interest in lawyers was not as great as his interest in the other victim categories found in his fiction. However, I would like to briefly examine an article by Per Nykrog. an article that offers some interesting speculation on the origin of The Fall, and thus Clamence, Camus's main lawyer character.

Nykrog writes that "this story has a lot to do with Camus' own 'fall,' from triumphant international glory in the late 1940s into personal defeat and humiliation in the mid 50s...." (66). This humiliation was brought about primarily by Sartre because of his reaction to Camus's The Rebel (L'Homme revolte). Camus supposedly wanted some revenge, and thus made Clamence to represent Sartre. To back up this view. Nykrog offers several observations. For example. Nykrog associates Jean-Baptiste Clamence and Jean-Paul Sartre by pointing out that both are critics of people. Jean-Baptiste is also the name of

Sartre's father.

Nykrog summarizes The Fall, "reduced to a very rudimentary formula," as follows: "True, the Camus I was in the old days was phony, inauthentic. But suppose I were to follow your philosophy, Sartre, trying to achieve authenticity the way you recommend, by destroying appearances: I might well end up like you, secretly miserable, double-dealing traitor to boot" (71). In essence, if

Nykrog is right. Clamence is Sartre. If not. Clamence. by virtue that he is a penitent judge, is at least an existentialist (see section 3.4), which at least associates him in part with Sartre. And in regard to Clamence's first name, it may in fact have nothing to do with the name of Sartre's father, but be of biblical inspiration instead, which would be consistent with the rest of the novel. 187

Chapter 4; The Third Domain

As Tarrou reveals in The Plague, the world consists of "scourges and victims" (229). At first. Tarrou says that there is nothing else besides scourges and victims, but almost immediately he corrects himself and adds a third domain: the one of true doctors. He also says that this domain consists of peace. In this chapter. I shall examine these elements of the third domain.

4.1.- True Doctors

Tarrou does not explain what a true doctor is. All he says about them is that "it's a fact that a lot of them are not to be encountered, and it's probably difficult" (229). In The Plague, several doctors are mentioned. Richard is said to be one of Oran's most important doctors. Castel comes up with the serum that starts healing people. But only Rieux is examined to any significant extent in the novel. Only Rieux. as far as we are told, is befriended by Tarrou. It would not be farfetched to assume that Rieux is an example of a true doctor. By examining him. we can determine what Tarrou means by "true doctor."

Tarrou's journal contains a detailed physical description of Rieux, but this description reveals nothing unusual. However, inferences can be made regarding what we are told about his habits: Rieux always wears dark-colored clothing, which is not exactly smart in a hot desert town like Oran. Behind the wheel of a car. Rieux is said to be distracted. He often leaves the turn signal on after making a turn. In other words, a true doctor is not perfect.

What makes Rieux unique, and maybe therefore a true doctor, is his 188

dedication. If there is work to be done, he gets it done, even if it means getting

only four hours of sleep per night and repeatedly so. At one point in the novel,

when Rieux is unable to cure a certain patient, he is told. "You don't have a

heart" (176). but Rieux explains that he indeed has a heart, and that he uses it to

tolerate twenty hours per day of seeing men die. We are told that he visits the

elderly asthmatic at ten at night. We also learn that some time into the plague,

he comes home to his mother, who lives with him. at two in the morning. He is

a man of great patience and devotion to his profession. Rieux is also a fighter, a

fighter against the plague, a fighter against death. B. Garnham believes that

Rieux embodies sympathy, which in turn is somewhat associated with revolt; "It

is this sympathy which Camus is portraying in the novel, and revolt is seen as no

more than a defense of it" (251).

I could have discussed Rieux and other doctors in the previous chapter, on

victims. Rieux is a victim. Although sickness provides him with employment, it

also causes him to be separated from his wife, which is stressful. The plague

also gives him stress by giving him too much work to do. The plague is likewise

responsible for taking his friend Tarrou from him. Rieux is both in the second

domain (victims) and in the third domain. He has characteristics pertaining to

both domains. This is not a contradiction. Tarrou says that he himself chose to

be a victim rather than a scourge. Why? He says: "Among them [victims]. 1 can at least seek how one arrives at the third category, i.e., peace" {229X55). An aggressor cannot find peace (228). but a victim can. by being with other victims, where a friend might be found. One way of finding peace, I offer, is by finding a true friend, which is what I think a true doctor is. This also explains why

Tarrou places both true doctors and peace into the third category. Another interpretation is that the third category consists inherently of peace, and that true 189

doctors are a link between victims and peace in the same way that aggression is

the link between aggressors and victims.

*

Of the several character categories appearing in Camus's fiction (children,

artists, priests, judges, lawyers), only doctors are portrayed relatively favorably in a consistent manner. In The Happy Death, we have Dr. Bernard. Although he is

retired, he still makes a house call to examine the sick Mersault. Contrary to

Rieux, whose first name is Bernard, Dr. Bernard does not like to bathe in the sea.

but that is because he loves life too much to be satisfied by nature (183).

Mersault contemplates telling his doctor his secret, i.e.. how he killed Zagreus, but does not when he learns that Dr. Bernard is capable of having contempt for anyone who is "moved by the interest or the taste for money" (184). This suggests that Dr. Bernard himself, unlike many modern doctors, is not enthralled by having a fat wallet.

Diego is Rieux's counterpart in State of Siege, except that for a while, as the result of the coming of the plague, Diego exhibits weakness. He experiences fear and even resorts to taking a hostage, a small boy. But Diego soon comes to his senses and overcomes his fear of death. He even slaps the secretary, who represents Death. He organizes a rebellion. In the end. he gives his own life to save that of his selfish fiancee. He is an example of a true doctor.

There is one somewhat significant doctor in The First Man. The doctor is one who was not needed at Jacques's birth because Jacques was born before the doctor could arrive. This failure to arrive on time apparently had an effect on the doctor because he remembered the incident and the place of the incident for years to come: Once Jacques became an adult, he went looking for the doctor in order to find out where he, Jacques, was born. He found the doctor, and the doctor 190

remembered the occasion, and was thus able to enlighten Jacques.

*

In The Rebel, we read. "It is better to die standing than to live on one's

knees" (PE. 425). This is the underlying philosophy of at least two of Camus's doctors, and something that Diego illustrates to the end. In Camus's noiebooks,

we read, "The doctor, enemy of God: he fights against death" (2C. 129). Camus

portrayed doctors in such a favorable light perhaps because both he and doctors

had the same enemy: God. Camus's notebooks elaborate on Rieux in particular as being an enemy of God: we are told that it "was even his Job to be the enemy of

God" {2C, 129). Later in Camus's notebooks, we read. "Revolt: the end product of revolt without God is philanthropy" (2C, 301), which describes the "true doctor."

Robert de Luppe, on the other hand, has a somewhat more elaborate conceptualization of what a true doctor is. He says that "it's he who gets across in his profession the truths that he has assimilated: misery of man. community of condition, rejection of suffering, and constant struggle to lessen it" (96—emphasis his): in other words: revolt. Adding friendship and the fight against death would complete the picture. 191

4.2.- Friendship

After Tarrou's explanation of the structure of existence. Rieux asks him if

he has any idea on how to reach the third domain. Tarrou says yes: sympathy,

which is the main component of friendship.

One of the major themes in The Plague is friendship—the friendship

between Rieux and Tarrou being the main one examined. Rieux calls Tarrou a friend for the first time when he. Rieux, introduces him to his mother. This is of interest because about a hundred pages later, Tarrou points out that Rieux has never tried to find out anything about him. yet at this point. Rieux reaffirms that he feels friendship for Tarrou. This suggests that one need not know another person very well in order to befriend that person. Friendship, it would seem, is somewhat superficial in nature in The Plague, or is perhaps more precisely sympathy.

Tarrou tells Rieux that what they should do for the sake of friendship is bathe in the sea. and they do so. Thomas Kelly views this scene as "probably the most important one in the novel" (58). Rieux describes his swimming episode as a "fleeting instant of peace and friendship" (233)(56). We see here that friendship is associated with one of the identified elements of the third domain; peace. I shall mention in passing that Jean Gassin sees a homosexual relation between Tarrou and Rieux, at least on an unconscious level, and proposes that the bathing scene can be interpreted as a night of lovemaking (93), Redmond

O'Hanlon does not go as far, but he does note that the bathing scene is "presided over by the light of the moon and stars—by harmony, love, understanding and life" (124). Kelly sees in the scene something more literary: a merging of two complimentary characters. He explains that Rieux is "the active but non- 192 contemplative man. while Tarrou has been the contemplative but less active man"

(58). The two form a "compound hero" to combat the plague.

The theme of friendship is also seen in how it relates to Rambert and his attempt to flee Oran. Once again, friendship is a superficial yet important matter: Garcia, the first contact man to help get Rambert out. does not trust

Rambert because he is a journalist, "a profession in which one talks a lot" (134).

Cottard then mentions that Rambert is a friend, as if his being a friend makes him trustworthy, but Cottard barely knows Rambert. Later in the novel,

Gonzales, another contact man, calls Rambert a true buddy, even though they hardly know one another. The reason they get along is because they both like soccer, and this seems to bind them in perhaps the same way that fighting the plague binds Rieux and Tarrou.

There is an interesting scene involving the concept of friendship and

Paneloux. After he falls sick. Rieux offers to stay with him. but Paneloux replies: "Thank you... But priests don't have friends. They have placed everything in God" (211), We see in this scene the connection between the true doctor and friendship: although Paneloux is Rieux's ideological enemy. Rieux, a true doctor, someone who offers sympathy, friendship, is willing to inconvenience himself for someone who is not a friend in turn, and one who perhaps never could be.

Before leaving this chapter sub-subsection. I would like to note something that Camus said in a letter to Roland Barthes: namely that Rambert "shows the artificiality in the opposition between the friend and the militant, since one virtue is common to the two of them, which is active fraternity" (PT, 1974). This explains why almost total strangers call themselves friends in The Plague: it is because they share an active fraternity, which does not require a significant 193

knowledge of one another beforehand. This active fraternity can be an interest in

soccer or the common goal of fighting the plague.

*

Friendship is also a theme in Camus's other fiction, but this theme is not

as pronounced as in The Plague. In Camus's first novel. The Happy Death. Rose

and Claire, students, are Mersault's friends. While he is traveling by train, he

writes to them and asks them to talk about themselves and about the sun—it was

overcast during his travels. He also spends much time with friends in general

when not traveling. But there is not a single one of them with whom he shares

his secret. Dr. Bernard, who is not in Mersault's regular circle of friends and

who does not really seem to be a friend at all. is the only one that Mersault

contemplates telling his secret to. Mersault distrusts his friends perhaps because

they are not "true doctors."

In The Stranger. Raymond asks Meursault indirectly if he would like to be

his buddy. Meursault answers with his favorite response: that it is all the same

to him. Meursault regards friendship as a superficial matter. However. Monique

Wagner disagrees: "Meursault not only offers a false testimony to save Raymond

from the police, but actually goes through with it, so desperate is his need to hold

on to someone he can call his 'friend'" (333).

Later in the novel, Raymond and a friend. Masson. fight the two Arabs.

In the event a third Arab were to show up, he would be for Meursault. We see here that friends fight together, but not necessarily against a common enemy, as is the case with Rieux and Tarrou. The Arabs are Raymond's problem, and no one else's. Raymond is abusing his friendship. He cannot be regarded as a true doctor.

Friendship comes briefly into play in The Just Assassins. The Grand 194

Duchess, a Christian, visits Kaliayev in prison and wants him to pray with her.

He refuses because it would mean betraying his friends. He does not use the

word friends, but says "those whom I love, my brothers who think about me at

this moment" (PT. 374). He betrays no one by either praying or accepting the offer of the chief of police to spare his life by revealing the names of the other terrorists. Kaliayev does not even betray Stepan. a thorn in Kaliayev's side. In a way. because of the "active fraternity" involved in terrorist acts. Stepan is

Kaliayev's friend.

In The Fall. Clamence says that he has no friends, only accomplices. He knows that he does not have any friends because he once wanted to punish them by committing suicide, but then he asked himself whom he would punish, but he could not come up with an answer. However, he calls his interlocutor "My friend." Clamence even calls him quite often "Dear friend." It would seem that

Clamence uses both the standard concept of friendship and the "active fraternity" version. He has no friends in the conventional sense, but he has an active fraternity with his interlocutor. The common bond between the two men could be that they are both less than ideal individuals who view the world in similar ways.

Friendship is also a theme in "The Guest." at least in the sense that Daru shows sympathy to his Arab guest and tries to help him escape. However. Elwyn

Sterling sees matters in a way that contradicts what I believe is obvious. Sterling says that Daru "rejects the unspoken and spoken appeals for fraternity that come to him from the Arab" (2. 528). Sterling also says that "Daru has condemned the murderer [the Arab], as the Lord did Cain, to the condition of a solitaire, a stranger among men" (2. 529). Daru supposedly did this because he gave the

Arab a choice to either go to prison (where he would be a stranger) or live as a fugitive among the nomads (where he would also be a stranger). Either way. the 195

Arab loses out. Sterling seems to be saying that Daru should have intervened

directly rather than allow the Arab to make the decision. If so. what should have

been Daru's course of action? It seems obvious to me that Daru intended the

Arab to go live among the other Arabs, where he would not be a stranger because of the Arab unity against the French. Daru gave the Arab a choice so that he.

Daru. would not have to choose between the Arabs and the French, since Daru. as did Camus, felt loyalty to both groups.

Camus reveals in his notebooks the intention to make friendship a theme in The First Man (3C. 149). In this novel. Jacques has school companions who can be considered as friends, but there is nothing truly unique about them.

Lessons on friendship are to be found primarily with a couple of mentors. One of them, Malan, is a sixty-five year old man. The adult Jacques has known him for twenty years. Malan is referred to as being Jacques's old friend. Jacques has the utmost love and respect for him. Jacques is also quite open with him. Jacques even points out his mentor's flaws right to his face: Malan is irresponsible, penny-pinching, suspicious of others. Jacques says that he would give all of his goods to Malan upon his request—such is the esteem that Jacques has for Malan.

Jacques says to him, "I love you with your flaws" (38).

The other appreciated mentor in Jacques's life is Mr. Bernard. Although he is a teacher by profession, he is what Camus would call a true doctor. In order to help Jacques and three other kids get a scholarship. Mr. Bernard works with them after school for two hours every day for a month, and he does it for free, since the children's families are too poor to pay. Let us note that this is the third Bernard to be a true doctor.

•

Friendship is a common theme in Camus's notebooks. Early in his life. 196

Camus needed friendship: "Young, I asked of people more than they could give: a

continuous friendship, a permanent emotion" (IC. 19)(57). Camus took pleasure

in even the most simple expressions of friendship. He points out in particular the

pleasure in giving or receiving a light for a cigarette (IC. 134). Camus is

optimistic about friendship: "The friendship of men is always in good taste" (3C,

142), which is not to say that friends are always nice to have around: "I

withdrew from the world not because I had enemies, but because I had friends"

(2C, 238). He immediately goes on to explain that the problem was that they

considered him to be better than he actually was. "It was a lie that I could not

tolerate," he adds. Camus was not really escaping his friends but a lie. Friends

are needed. In an earlier entry, he explains that when we search for peace, we

consult others in order to find it. But at first they cannot give it to us. We look

elsewhere, such as heaven, but heaven is silent. It is then that we seek others

again, even though they cannot give us this ultimate peace, but at least friends

can give us sleep (2C. 80), which is a form of peace. It feels good to have a good night's rest. Having friends is soothing to the soul, even if they are not

perfect or cannot bring ultimate peace. 197

4.3.- Happiness

An element of peace, or peace itself, is happiness, the goal that everyone

seems to have, but not too many people attain, or maintain after having found it.

In The Plague, after Tarrou points out that there is the impression that man is

capable of anything. Rambert says that man is incapable of suffering or of being

happy for very long (150). Whether or not one is happy depends on

circumstance. Soon after Tarrou dies. Rieux feels that at least at that moment he

himself will never know peace because he has lost his friend. Rieu.x. an atheist,

also wonders whether or not Tarrou. also an atheist, has found peace (262). This

suggests the possibility that one can be happy in death. For a Christian, there is

nothing unusual about this, but for an atheist, it is another matter. Emily Zants.

however, offers an explanation that is not totally inconsistent with an atheist

finding happiness in death. She points out the possibility that Tarrou could have

found "a kind of peace from not having caused another's death,..." (421). Zants

further explains that "it is a peace he could achieve only upon dying, since he

might always have caused a death while alive." Tarrou is indeed concerned about

unintentionally killing people, but I feel that Zants grants this concern too much

importance. The source of his mental anguish is how others purposefully kill

people in an official manner: execution.

*

According to Jean Sarocchi, the editor of the edition of The Happy Death that I am using, "the main theme [of the novel is]: how to die happy, i.e.. how to live happily to the point where death itself is happy" (9). According to

Zagreus, in order to be happy, money and time are needed. He had them both, so was he happy? Perhaps before he lost his legs. Afterward, he gets around to 198

contemplating suicide. However, he seems to be happy Just before Mersauit pulis

the trigger, yet his desire for death suggests unhappiness. In an entry that seems

to be on The Happy Death, since it describes someone like Zagreus, we are told

that he "dies happy" (IC, 67—emphasis by Camus).

Zagreus is not alone in being happy. Mersauit takes his money, and has time, therefore meeting the requirements for happiness according to Zagreus.

Near the end of the novel, we learn that Mersauit "had fulfilled his role, had perfected the sole duty of man. which is only to be happy" (202)(58).

In Camus's subsequent works of fiction and in his private writings, money no longer is necessary for happiness. In fact. Camus later substitutes a carefree poverty as an element of happiness. But what we do see in subsequent works of fiction is a continuation of the theme of the happy death. Abdallah Naaman says.

"The search for happiness is at the base of the theme of death in Camus's work"

(159). In the last paragraph of The Stranger. Meursault thinks about why his mother took on a "fiance": It was because, so close to death, she felt liberated and ready to relive life. Meursault, who is also close to death via execution, also feels ready to "relive everything." Later in the paragraph, he says that he is happy.

In State of Siege, twice Diego says before dying that he is happy. After the first time, his fiancee says, "No one has the right to be happy of dying" (PT,

297) (59). He responds by saying: "I am happy, Victoria. I have done what had to be done." We see here that doing one's duty can result in happiness at death.

This view is repeated in The Just As.sassins. where Kaiiayev thinks that it is his duty to die for having killed the Grand Duke. Kaiiayev says that he will be happy at his own e.xecution, and he says this with exultation (PT, 375)!

Finding happiness in life involves, in part, doing away with the fear of j

199

death. Diego does this in State of Siege, and even gives Death a slap in the face.

In "The Adulterous Woman" (Exile and the Kingdom). Janine is afraid of death;

"If I were to overcome this fear. I would be happy" (31). She eventually does

overcome this fear and e.xperiences as a result an inordinate Joy.

But there are goals to attain besides happiness. We see this in The

Misunderstanding. Jan and Maria have happiness. Jan says. "Happiness, we

have" (168), yet this is not enough. And he goes on to say: "Happiness is not

everything and men have their duty. Mine is to find my mother, a country..."

(169). As a result, he ends up dead. Yvonne Guers-Villate comments on Jan's

attitude; "It is this 'duty' that destines man to pains because he goes about too

often against happiness" (235).

*

In "The Desert" (Nuptials), we find an early definition of happiness;

"But what is happiness if not the accord between the being and the existence he

leads?" (PE, 85). This perhaps explains why "we must imagine Sisyphus happy"

(Myth of Sisyphus. 166), even though he is condemned to a pointless repetitive

act for all eternity. As Camus explains in the essay, the struggles of life, even if

they are pointless, are sufficient to fill the heart of man.

But Camus does not seem to be able to live according to this view. His

struggles are sometimes too much. His private writings have no shortage of

entries on his unhappiness. One haunting entry is; "Not difficulty but

impossibility of being" (2C. 318). Later in life, he breaks down into tears after

contemplating something he read in a book about losing faith in life (3C, 42-43).

which suggests that perhaps he. too, was losing faith in life. He begins to fear a

frightful death because, although he has helped others, no one comes to help him

(3C, 44 and 50). He loses faith in his "star" (3C, 59). While at the Borghese 200

villa, in Italy, he writes: "Here I regret the stupid and dark years that I lived in

Paris" (3C. 137)—dark years imply melancholy. Camus even has panic attacks

(3C. 215). He later elaborates: "For a few minutes, sensation of total madness.

Then exhaustion and quivering. Sedatives" (3C. 215). And his unhappiness is

clearly felt when he says. "I struggle like a fish caught in the mesh of the net"

(3C. 261).

The weather on occasion contributes to his displeasure with life: "There are hours when I believe that I can no longer tolerate the contradiction. When the sky is cold and when nothing else supports us in nature... Ah! It is perhaps better to die" (2C. 183). And later: "The end of a cold day. twilights of shadows and of ice...more than I can tolerate" (2C. 300). The rain also affects him:

"Rain that for days does not cease. Profound and dry sadness" (3C. 204). In his travel journal, while in New York, he notes that it is raining. He adds: "Terrible feeling of abandon" (V49).

During his travels in South America, and in particular. Montevideo,

Camus suffered exceptional gloom: "Terrible sadness and sensation of isolation"

(VI30). He also writes, "Obliged to acknowledge to myself that, for the first time in my life. I'm in the middle of a psychological collapse" (V131). This experience, of course, was unpleasant. As he states in a further note, "This depression, in a certain way, is hell" (VI31). It should be noted that Camus went to South America not for vacation but to give conferences. His schedule was a heavy one and was marred by the frequent incompetence of his hosts. At least during his travels in South America, mental fatigue was probably influential in his depression.

But all is not gloom in Camus's life. Although he loses faith in his star

(3C. 59). he eventually regains it, and with it. happiness (3C, 182). How? By 201

fighting: "It is in the struggle that in the end I have always found my peace" (3C,

182). We are reminded of Diego.

Camus seems to have been at his happiest early in his adult life. One

early entry says: "It is sufficient: this lone, dawning glimmer and here I am

immersed in a confusing and bewildering joy" (IC. 21). He later adds, and with

more than a hint of blasphemy: "I am happy in this world because my kingdom is of this world" (IC. 22). In March of 1935, he says. "My joy has no end" (IC.

31). During this early part of his adulthood. Camus finds something even better than happiness, or so he thinks: "I do not know what better thing I could wish for than this continuous presence of myself in myself. It is not to be happy that I now wish for but only to be aware" (IC, 23).

But Camus's affective life would be a roller coaster. As I have noted above, the weather could contribute to his unhappiness; however, it could also bestow peace: "Certain evenings whose sweetness continues. This helps in dying to know that such evenings will return to earth after we are gone" (3C, 25). Then while taking a walk in the hills surrounding Turin, the city covered with fog and the air fresh, humid and with the smell of fall, Camus feels "tired and strangely happy" (3C. 133). Soon afterward, he arrives at Rome. He was not too happy because it had been raining, but then he notes, "In the morning, finally the sun, pale yet determined, on the Roman countryside. Tears stupidly come to my eyes"

(3C, 136). And in his travel journal, he notes that the sky over New York is blue and beautiful. The skyscrapers turn around "in the blue" to "the rhythm of traffic." Camus calls all of this "a good moment" {V34).

Camus later notes in his travel journal: "I digest another sample of these ice-cream that constitute my joy. Yet another good moment" {V34—the word ice­ cream is already in English). We see here that the sense of taste can bring about 202

a degree of happiness. In the above entry regarding Camus's walk near Turin,

the sense of smell comes into play, such as when the air is said to have the smell

of fall. Upon contemplating Algiers in the morning. Camus writes. "The

jasmines in the St. George garden. Smelling them fills me with joy. with youth"

(3C. 152). But the most important sense for happiness is sight, and in particular,

the beholding of beauty: "Beauty, which helps in living, also helps in dying" {2C,

285), i.e.. it brings peace at death's approach. Camus also writes. "I've lived

without measure from beauty: eternal bread" (2C. 326).

By beauty. Camus means primarily the beauty of nature. James Woelfel

says that "Camus's god" is Mediterranean nature (19). While in Greece, Camus

writes: "The most beautiful evening in the world is setting little by little upon the

Mycenaean Lions. The mountains darken little by little until the ten chains that

reverberate up to the horizon become a single blue vapor. It was worth the

trouble to come from so far to receive this grand piece of eternity. After this,

everything else no longer has importance" (3C, 165). He later notes, the sun

setting: "It's a strange and vast calmness that then falls upon the waters.

Happiness at last, happiness close to the point of tears because I would like to

keep and grasp this inexpressible joy that I know must nevertheless disappear.

But it silently lasts for several days" (3C, 169).

Nature can bring about happiness even under conditions of exceptional

fatigue; Once after Camus had had only two hours of sleep during the night, and

then had driven for eleven hours straight, he arrives near Nyons and notes. "The

landscape that I recognized nourishes me once again, and I arrive happy" (3C.

257). Camus also apparently thought that nature could even cure—earlier in his

life he made a note for a literary project he had in mind: "Write the story of a contemporary cured of his pangs by the sole and long contemplation of a scenery" 203

(2C. 187).

Camus also found happiness in his work. In "Why I Do Theater"

("Pourquoi je fats du theatre"), he writes that he does theater "quite simply because a theater stage is one of the places in the world where I'm happy" (PT,

1720). However, he was not always satisfied in his work: "I've never been happy and calm except in a trade, a Job, done with other men whom I could love. I don't have a trade, only a vocation. And my job is solitary. I have to accept it and try only to be worthy of it, which is not the case at this moment" (3C. 164).

Happiness is also to be found in physical love: "For me. physical love has always been tied to an irresistible feeling of innocence and joy" (3C, 274).

Camus's notebooks have an entry on Poe and his four conditions for happiness. These are life in the open air. the love of a being, detachment from all ambition, and creation (IC, 160). It is clear that Camus met at least the first, second and fourth of these conditions. Although Camus does not seem to be the ambitious type in the conventional sense, he did have certain lofty desires for the world. He wanted world peace, and especially peace in Algeria. He wanted the end of capital punishment worldwide. He also wanted to get rid of nuclear weapons. Plus he had so much more that he felt he had to write. With so much to accomplish still, it is understandable why he lacked peace at times. But based on one entry for a literary project, it is perhaps good that he was not always happy. The entry is: "Play. A happy man. And no one can stand him" (3C.

III). 204

4.4.- The Sea

In the previous section. I discussed how the contemplation of nature can

bring about peace/happiness. In the following pages. I would like to e.xamine a specific manifestation of nature that was especially important to Camus: the sea.

In The Plague, the sea is associated with friendship and happiness: It is for the sake of friendship that Tarrou and Rieux decide to go swimming in the sea (230).

Using their special passes, they leave the city and head for the sea. Before taking their clothes off. they admire it. Rieux writes that he "was full of a strange happiness" (231). Rieux looks over at Tarrou and pictures the same sort of happiness on his face. too. After they have swum for a while, they are said to be

"finally freed from the city and the plague" (232), but this freedom is temporary, for they soon return to the city and to the battle against the scourge. But let us note that this temporary freedom occurs after the sensation of happiness. This suggests that freedom is not a prerequisite for happiness. Let us also note that the sea seems to do away with the plague, if not on a metaphorical level. Angelo

Bertocci seems to view this as the case irrespective of the bathing scene: "For

Oran, as a city, turns its back on the sea. and the plague appears when, in summer, no free air blows from the sea" (36). [Technical note: the plague does not appear in summer but in early spring, but it does get worse during the summer. At the end of June, Rieux writes that "everyone understood with fright that the heat would help the epidemic [get worse]" (107). Also, the wind does blow from the sea during the summer and all other seasons when the sun is up and heating the land—breezes reverse direction at night.]

But what is it exactly about the sea that brings about happiness? The swimming episode does have a physical description of the sea. even though the 205 episode takes place at night, where not much would be seen. This suggests that the sea's appearance is significant, since an effort is made to describe it despite the darkness. We are also told about the sea's lukewarmness. which suggests that the physical sensations the sea occasions are also of importance. In other words, the sea is stimulating to the senses. It creates a physical pleasure that becomes a mental one, which in turn is interpreted as happiness.

In Camus's other fiction, the sea is also associated with happiness. In The

. the sea is frequently described. Mersault purchases a home overlooking the bay. The beauty of the view is said to have touched his heart

(157), but the sea is only part of this view. Mersault's desire to be by the sea is more associated with the sun than with the sea itself. This is best seen at the beginning of the third chapter of the second part. There is also much attention paid to the vegetation. The view seems to cause quite a bit of happiness because we are told that "we had every day to conquer our Joy" (131). Mersault is not alone in his contemplation of the view, for he is with some female friends who purposefully contribute to the view.

The sea also figures in The Stranger, although not as extensively as in The

Happy Death. The sea is not described in the scene after the funeral where

Meursault goes swimming and eventually meets Marie, but it is clear from references to the heat that his interest in the sea has to do with its refreshing qualities. It is the same situation in the scene where Meursault goes to the beach with Masson and Marie. Soon after Meursault notices that the sand is heating up. he jumps into the sea. He swims up to Marie. We are then told about their contentment (82). presumably brought about by the sea. And after Meursault ends up in prison and starts having "thoughts of a free man," his first thoughts are 206

of the beach. He imagines the sound of the waves and the entry of his body into

the water (119). He then mentions his "deliverance." All of this suggests again

that it is the physical sensations of the sea that bring about the sensation of

peace.

In The Misunderstanding, the mother and daughter are killing people for

their money in order to move to and live by the sea. The mother would like to see her daughter smile, who claims she does smile but only in her room, but she

will smile openly once they live by the sea. The sea will bring her happiness

(160). The sea will bring happiness because of its appearance and associated features, such as the general presence of sunshine. Such features can be inferred from what is disliked about the location where mother and daughter live. They want "to leave these lands without a horizon this rainy city,... this country of shadows...." in order to seek out that which has the opposite characteristics: the beach/sea.

In "The Silent Ones" (Exile and the Kingdom). Yvars likes the sea. We read in this short story that "the deep and clear water, the strong sun. the girls, the life of the body, there was no other happiness in his country. And this happiness passed with youth" (62). Despite his age, Yvars still likes the sea. "but only at the end of the day. when the waters of the bay darkened a bit" (62). At such times, he "did not know...if he was happy, or if he felt like crying" (63).

In The First Man, the pleasures of the sea are such that Jacques risks punishment by staying out too late. He swims with his friends. We are told in particular that the "glory of the light [sunshine] filled these young bodies with a joy that made them cry out without ceasing" (54).

*

The sea was influential in Camus's own life in finding peace: "The sea: I 207 was not losing myself there; I was refinding myself" (2C. 314). Also: "If I should die unknown to the world in the pits of a cold prison, the sea at the last moment would fill my cell, would come to lift me up above myself and would help me die without hatred" (2C. 344-45). It is also at the sea where he feels he has the right to die peacefully (3C. 69). And upon contemplating the beauty of

Algiers in the morning: "The descent to the city, fresh, airy. The sea afar, sparkling. Happiness" (3C. 152). It is no wonder that the sea figures so prominently in his fiction as a source of pleasure, happiness and peace. 208

4.5.- Light

Light is not explicitly part of Tarrou's stated view of the third domain. In

fact, the bathing scene takes place in relative darkness. But based mainly on

Camus's private writings, it is clear that light—especially sunlight—is associated

with peace/happiness.

In section 1.5. I discussed Camus's unusual way of qualifying light. I

mentioned that in The Plague, for e.xample. we read about "a certain light" (73).

"a younger light" (95). about how the "sky begins to lose its light as the result of

the excess heat" (114). about a "soft and fresh light" (219), a "sparkling and icy

light" (220). and "the gray light" (250). There is more of the same in his other fiction. In his notebooks, we also encounter this unusual qualification of light, although not extensively. For example, the light of Florence is said to be

"diffuse, silvery, spiritual": whereas the light of Rome is "round [or brisk] on the contrary, gleaming and supple" (3C. 140). At Tipasa. the light is "fresh and magnificent" (3C 145). And one morning during his stay in Greece, he says that the "light is divine." (3C. 172).

I mentioned in the previous section that in The First Man, the "glory of the light" filled the young bodies of Jacques and company "with a joy that made them cry out without ceasing" (54). Light, like the sea and nature in general, brings about the third domain or the sensation of it.

In Camus's notebooks, the bulk of the references to light as a source of peace or happiness are to be found among those entries he made during his last ten years of life. This is somewhat strange because his unique way of noticing light is seen from his very first works. It would seem that it was not until much later in life that he became fully conscious of the ability of light to create a sense 209

of peace or happiness within him. He writes in early March, 1950. "Radiant

light. It seems to me that I'm emerging from a ten-year-old slumber..." (2C.

315). About a year later, while remembering having been on the beach in Brazil:

"There is no greater Joy for me than to tread upon the virgin sand to an encounter

with a resounding light..." {3C, 58). We see here not only that light is associated

with Joy but also that light has an audible quality! And while Camus was in

Greece, he reveals yet another unusual quality of light: "After an hour on the

road. I am literally drunk with light, my head full of radiance and silent cries; in

the den of my heart, an enormous Joy..." (3C, 163). Camus also records what he

feels when his lightoholic cravings are not satisfied: "It's still raining: I hunger

for light as for bread, and can no longer endure myself" (3C, 205). But light does not always satisfy completely, although it does help to an extent. Arriving

in Cannes after a stay in Algeria. Camus notes: "Light—light—and anxiety draws

back, not entirely gone, but dull, as if asleep in the heat and the sun" (3C, 222).

In section 1.5. I offered an explanation for Camus's fascination with light:

He probably suffered from Seasonal Mood Disorder, and light is something that people afflicted with this illness tend to notice. It is like a drug to them.

However, an alternative explanation has been offered. Alba Amoia writes:

"Camus associated God with the Mediterranean in a unique formula in which sun and light emerge as his personal source of truth" (43). Amoia does not do an excellent Job of explaining what this means, but Elwyn Sterling has noted a scene in The Stranger in which light shows itself as a source of truth, or at least of additional information. It is the scene at the wake at the time when Meursault is aroused by the arrival of his departed mother's friends. Sterling points out that the light was so bright that it hurt Meursault's eyes, and that he saw the people as he had never seen anyone before, noticing every detail of their faces and clothes 210

(1. 14). I personally question the view that light is a source of truth because

Camus almost always associates light with a mood, whether his own or that of an ambiance in a novel or other work. 211

AFTERWORD

In the Preface, I reviewed the leitmotifs that various scholars claim exist in the body of Camus's work or in parts thereof. These leitmotifs include libertarianism; union; to know if it is necessary to accept suicide and murder: beauty and poverty; justice, truth and liberty; happiness; the sun; the struggle for liberty; love and justice; absurd and revolt, suicide and solidarity; old age, death, solitude, time and change; nature, love, harmony, vitality and permanence; the ideal or positive, and the real or social; the presentation of opposites. The various scholars cling to one or just a few of these leitmotifs. In this dissertation, I have tried to reveal a more sophisticated and accurate pattern to

Camus's work. This pattern is revealed in its most basic form in The Plague, where Camus presents the view that existence consists of scourges, victims, and an elusive third domain: that of true doctors (true friends) and peace/happiness.

Most of Camus's recurrent themes revolve around these divisions. Scourges may be human or non-human agents. In this sense, they are aggressors. A scourge can also be action. In this second sense, a scourge is an aggression. Recurrent victims in Camus's fiction include children, artists, clergy, judges and lawyers.

It is first by becoming a victim—a member of the second domain—that one reaches the third domain, the domain of tranquillity.

There are connectors between the subsequent domains. Aggression is the link between aggressors and victims. Friends and various aspects of nature—such as the sea. light, the perfume of flowers, the taste of ice cream—link victims with peace/happiness. But Camus's view of existence can be interpreted differently.

The key is in the aggressions I have examined: exile, imprisonment, physical separation from loved ones, existential separation, solitude, death, murder. 212

execution and suicide. All of them involve separation. Separation is caused by

separators, which is what we can consider aggressors to be. Victims, of course,

are the separated, even if sometimes at only a metaphysical level. The third

domain can be viewed as the opposite of separation: union. As we saw in

Chapter 4, in order to be happy or at peace, there is some sort of union, such as

with a "true doctor." a true friend, or with some aspect of nature. It could be

said that the common denominators of e.xistence or life, according to Camus, are

separation and union. This is something with which. I believe. Albert Camus

would agree.

*

Before concluding this dissertation. I would like to hypothesize on the

possible source of Camus's recurrent themes. This source could be La Douleur

(Pain)• by Andre de Richaud. A copy of this novel was given to Camus in 1932 by his teacher, and later to become good friend. Jean Grenier. Camus read it in one night and was quite impressed by it. He realized that no vels are not just for entertainment but also for expressing various aspects of life— of his life. His reading of the book was the beginning of his literary career.

The novel has many of the themes and stylistic techniques seen in Camus's fiction. Reading it is almost like reading a novel by Camus himself. The book is about a woman who loses her husband in World War I, and is left to care for her young son alone—this is similar to Camus's own life e.xperience. since his mother also became a widow because of the war. The woman's name is Mrs.

Delombre. She likes to be in the shade. This is significant because her name sounds exactly like de 1'ombre (of the shade). This might have inspired Camus to come up with character names such as Mersault and Meursault (Mersault likes the sea, which is what the first three letters of his name mean in French; Meursault is 213

interested in death, which is what the first five letters of his name allude to).

Because Mrs. Deiombre is a widow, she suffers from solitude, and extremely so. She kisses her husband's portrait every night. She gets a reprieve

when she starts seeing a certain German prisoner, who comes to her house every

night, but he, too, e.xits her life, which throws her once again into solitude. Her son. Georges, also gets around to suffering solitude when his mother gets rid of

Olga. his one-eyed playmate war refugee. At first Mrs. Deiombre wanted to keep her specifically to spare Georges the e.xperience of solitude, but the stress of her own solitude had driven her into believing in almanac oracles, one of which warns her to beware of someone in her vicinity. She assumes this to be Olga.

Mrs. Deiombre concocts a lie to rid herself of the girl, saying that she stole money. The themes of solitude, friendship, falsehood, and the adoption of superstitions are all Camusian themes.

Mrs. Deiombre never goes to church, which is something that some

Camusian characters also do. When her German lover gets her pregnant and then takes off, she contemplates suicide, as does her son. Georges. She even picks a date: April 16, which is four months away. Suicide and term suicide are

Camusian themes.

Death in general is a prevalent theme in the novel. World War I is going on. so there are reports of casualties. E.xcept for priests, there do not seem to be too many adult males in the village. There is a doctor, Fauriel, but he is hardly mentioned. Father Melun, who was giving Georges catechism lessons, dies apparently from the cold. At his funeral, Georges comes to believe that "the most wicked man in the world does not deserve this punishment [of being buried in the humid ground]" (231). At the end of the novel, Mrs. Deiombre falls down some stairs and breaks a lamp in the process, which in turn burns down her 214

house, and her with it. Georges escapes with a few burns but loses his mental

stability and begins hallucinating, in part, about "a beach full of light" (273).

which reminds us of Camus's fascination with beaches and light.

Because so many men are off at war, the Camusian theme of separation

from loved ones is prevalent, too. The Camusian theme of e.xile is also present

in regard to the three German prisoners, who are said to be exiled (103). Yet

these prisoners are treated well, being permitted to go about freely. In fact, one

of the main thrusts of the novel is that the German people should not be hated

because of the war. They do not like the war any more than the French do. It is

said several times that the three German prisoners are nice. Mrs. Delombre falls

in love with one of them, even though it was the Germans who killed her

husband. Interestingly, the main thrust in Camus's Letters to a German Friend

(PE. 213-43) is also that the German people should not be hated because of the

war. but this time, it is with reference to World War II.

The Camusian theme of not playing the game, and its consequences, is

seen in how .Mrs. Delombre is shunned and "quarantined" by the townsfolk

because of her relationship with Otto, one of the German prisoners, who is

admittedly a nice fellow. A brothel sign is painted in large letters on the side of

her house, an action that deeply hurts her. All of this behavior reflects negatively on the townsfolk and shows that they are the ones who are in the wrong. In fact,

they are nicer to the Germans than to her. At the beginning of the book. Otto

was even permitted to play soccer—with French teammates.

The sun is a common theme in the novel. Georges likes nature and the sun (57). He likes to be outside. Richaud has the same habit as Camus in regard

to giving seemingly constant weather reports. Richaud also qualifies light in a

way similar to Camus: for example, "soft light that floats" (31): "tearing light of 215

farm fires" (53): "thick light" (56): "tired light" (57): "beautiful green light, like a

liquid" (66); "hot and thick light" (76): "gray light" (229): "chalky light" (259):

etc..

Although the theme of poverty is something that Camus noticed in

Richaud's novel. I barely noticed it. The priests in the novel are not too well-off

financially, but then again, they are not supposed to be. There is talk of shortages of supplies, especially heating oil, but this is caused by the war rather than by poverty. Mrs. Delombre does not seem to be poor. She owns a farm and what seems to be a rather large house, with quite a bit of furniture. At one point in the novel, she goes on a spending spree, with no negative effects reported. We also learn that she still has her son's baby clothes, even though he is eleven years old. If she were poor, or at least very poor, she would have already sold the clothes, which in 1917 would have brought a nice price.

We will probably never know to what e.xtent e.xactly Richaud influenced

Albert Camus, but it seems clear that the influence in his selection of themes was of some significance. 216

NOTES

(1) "Ces iivres differents disent. il est vrai, la meme chose. Mais, apres tout, ils ont le meme auteur et a eux tous ils forment une seule ceuvre "

(2) "II y a les fleaux et les victimes. et rien de plus."

(3) "Nous sommes dans un monde ou il faut choisir d'etre victime ou bourreau— et rien d'autre."

(4) "Ce bacille est bizarre."

(5) "Ce qui est plus original dans notre villa est la difficulte qu'on peut y trouver a mourir."

(6) "La suppression, voila mon evangile."

(7) "La passion la plus forte du XX siecle: la servitude."

(8) "A mon age, on est forcement sincere. Mentir est trop fatigant."

(9) "Moins ils comprendront. mieux ils marcheront."

(10) "Dieu nie le monde, et moi Je nie Dieu! Vive rien puisque c'est la seule chose qui existe!"

(11) "Tout le monde ment. Bien mentir, voila ce qu'il faut."

(12) "La verite. comme la lumiere, aveugle. Le mensonge. au contraire. est un beau crepuscule, qui met chaque objet en valeur."

(13) "Auparavant, la pauvrete pres de sa mere avait une douceur. Lorsqu'ils se retrouvaient le soir et mangeaient en silence autour de la lampe a petrole, il y avait un bonheur secret dans cette simplicite et ce retranchement."

(14) "Dieu ne peut rien. La justice est notre affaire!"

(15) "Ce n'est pas mon metier."

(16) "D'ailleurs. je m'y trouve bien, moi, dans la peste, et je ne vois pas pourquoi je me melerais de la faire cesser."

(17) "Mais il crache le sang. La vie serait done ca, I'hopital, la mort, la solitude, cette absurdite."

(18) "On trouve dans le monde beaucoup d'injustices, mais il en est une dont on ne parle jamais, qui est celle du climat."

(19) "Gout de la mort et du soleil. Amour de vivre." 217

(20) "Ainsi. la premiere chose que la peste apporta a nos concitoyens fut I'exil."

(21) "Oui, j'ai cru ra ra "

(22) "La liberie est un bagne aussi longiemps qu'un seul homme est asservi sur cette terre."

(23) "Le vrai profaleme du moment: le chatiment."

(24) "En fait, nous souffrions deux fois—de noire souffrance d'abord et de celle ensuite que nous imaginions aux absents, fils, epouse ou amante."

(25) "...qu'une bonne organisation vaut mieux qu'un mauvais pathetique."

(26) "...ils s'installaient dans le present. A ia verite. tout leur devenait present. II faut bien le dire, la peste avail enleve a lous le pouvoir de I'amour et meme de I'amitie. Car I'amour demande un peu d'avenir. et il n'y avail plus pour nous que des instants."

(27) "La peste avail supprime les jugements de valeur. Et cela se voyait a la fagon doni personne ne s'occupaii plus de la qualite des vetements ou des aliments qu'on achetait."

(28) "Si le crime devient la loi. il cesse d'etre crime."

(29) "On ne peut pas etre heureux sans faire du mal aux autres. C'est la Justice de cette lerre."

(30) "Dans ces extremites de la solitude, enfin, personne ne pouvaii esperer I'aide du voisin et chacun restait seul avec sa preoccupation."

(31) "...qui avail un coeur ignorant, c'esi-a-dire solitaire."

(32) "...des poeies et des impuissanis."

(33) "Elle seniaii seulemeni sa solitude, et le froid qui la penetraii. et un poids plus lourd a I'endroit du coeur."

(34) "...I'ordre du monde est regie par la mori "

(35) "II est mori surpris. Une telle mort, ce n'est rien."

(36) "Calypso offre a Ulysse de choisir entre I'immortaliie et la terre de sa patrie. II repousse rimmortalite."

(37) "...la vie est plus cruelle que nous. C'est peut-etre pour cela que j'ai du mal a me sentir coupable."

(38) "Tu as livre noire frere. Tu paieras."

(39) "Celui qui a raison est celui qui n'a jamais tue. Ce ne peut done etre Dieu." 218

(40) "...son role n'etait plus de guerir. Son role etait de diagnostiquer. Decouvrir, voir, decrire, enregistrer. puis condamner. c'etait sa tache."

(41) "Un Jour, un incident insignifiant: un de ses amis lui parle distraitement."

(42) "On croit mourir pour punir sa femme, et on lui rend la liberie."

(43) "...si Ton refuse ses raisons au suicide, il n'est pas possible d'en donner au meurtre. On n'est pas nihiliste a demi."

(44) "S'il doit mourir. il aura souffert plus longtemps."

(45) "(Enfin un pays ou on s'occupe vraiment des enfants.)"

(46) "Par une belle matinee du moi de mai. une elegante amazone parcourait. sur une superbe jument alezane, les allees fleuries du Bois de Boulogne."

(47) "...le narrateur a tendu a I'objectivite. II n'a presque rien voulu modifier par les effets de I'art. sauf en ce qui concerne les besoins elementaires d'une relation a peu pres coherente."

(48) "..un artiste a plus de droits qu'un autre, tout le monde sait ga. On lui passe plus de choses."

(49) "Moi. je n'ai pas besoin d'une oeuvre: je vis."

(50) "...une forme epaisse et noire surmontee des deux taches de ses joues. rubicondes sous les lunettes d'acier."

(51) "Et je refuserai jusqu'a la mort d'aimer cette creation oii des enfants sont tortures."

(52) "Pretre. ne me quittes pas. Je suis ton pauvre!"

(53) "...auraient pu communiquer des puces."

(54) "Alors il m'a dit tres vite et d'une fagon passionnee que lui croyait en Dieu. que sa conviction etait qu'aucun homme n'etait assez couplable pour que Dieu ne lui pardonnat pas, mais qu'il fallait pour cela que I'homme par son repentir devint comme un enfant dont I'ame est vide et prete a tout accueillir."

(55) "Au milieu d'elles, Je peux au moins chercher comment on arrive a la troisieme categorie, c'est-a-dire a la paix."

(56) "...fugitif instant de paix et d'amitie "

(57) "Jeune. Je demandais aux etres plus qu'ils ne pouvaient donner: une amitie continuelle. une emotion permanente." 219

(58) "...avait rempli son role, avait parfait I'unique devoir de I'homme qui est seulement d'etre heureux."

(59) "Personne n'a le droit d'etre content de mourir." 220

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